GINA DOGGETT, Accra | Saturday
GHANAIAN voters have opted to turn their backs on the past, electing opposition leader John Kufuor to succeed longtime ruler Jerry Rawlings in the country’s first democratic transfer of power.
Rawlings’ protege John Atta Mills, the incumbent vice president, conceded defeat as near-final results showed Kufuor with an unassailable 15% lead in Thursday’s landmark election.
When Rawlings, who has held power for 19 years as military strongman then elected president, passes the baton to Kufuor on January 7 the occasion will mark the first time in Ghana’s 43 years of independence that one duly elected president will hand over power to another.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said: “The international community should rejoice at this orderly and democratic transfer of power and stand ready to help Ghana and other new democracies consolidate their hard-won gains.”
Annan, himself a Ghanaian, said through a spokesman: “With these elections, Ghana has demonstrated that democracy and its institutions continue to take root in Africa.”
Atta Mills’ campaign manager Spio-Garbrah said the two sides would hold a series of meetings in the next day or two to discuss plans for the transition.
Kufuor, 63, a former lawyer and businessman referred to by his admirers as the “gentle giant”, has been in Ghanaian politics off and on since the late 1960s, becoming head of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in 1996 when he lost narrowly to Rawlings.
Atta Mills, with his four-year vice presidency as his only political credentials, is a former law lecturer nicknamed “Prof” with little appeal to the grassroots, a mainstay of support for the charismatic Rawlings.
The west African country’s economic doldrums were a major factor in the opposition victory, with voters hoping for a remedy to unemployment, high inflation and a weakening currency.
With almost all the results in, Kufuor had garnered 57.5% of the vote against 42.5% for Atta Mills.
While the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government has been held to account for corruption and financial mismanagement, many also voted to reject the Rawlings legacy of human rights abuses during his 19 years in power, especially as military strongman from 1981 to 1992.
The vote was marred by numerous reports of violence, intimidation by uniformed men and irregularities in several areas. – AFP