Ghana lauded for smooth transition
Ghana lauded for smooth transition
Accra: Ghana swore in opposition leader John Atta-Mills as president yesterday in a democratic transfer of power that has won plaudits from Africa and the world.
President John Kufuor stepped down after serving the maximum two four-year terms in office in the West African state. His party's chosen successor lost a cliffhanger presidential election run-off to Atta-Mills last week by less than 0.5 per cent.
Many thousands of people packed Independence Square by the Atlantic seafront in central Accra for the ceremony. It was one of the biggest public gatherings since then-US president Bill Clinton visited Ghana more than 10 years ago.
Atta-Mills, who had lost the previous two presidential elections to Kufuor, faces an uphill task to steer Ghana's promising but indebted economy through a world financial crisis and to seek political consensus after a bruising electoral campaign.
Economic challenges
"Fortunately, Atta-Mills himself appears to have recognised the fact that the nation is somewhat divided, as reflected in the results of the presidential runoff," said Professor Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi, director of the Centre for Democratic Development.
"There are also immediate economic challenges. Both parties had made a lot of promises and the pressure to redeem them could lead to a hike in public spending, and that has implications for the economy," Gyimah-Boadi said.
Earlier, after being sworn in by the country's chief justice, Atta-Mills raised aloft the symbolic State Sword, representing government authority, to cheers from the crowd, and a military unit fired off a booming 21-gun salute. Several African leaders including President Umaru Yar'Adua of regional heavyweight Nigeria were present.
The election, which saw isolated violence but no major trouble, was welcomed as a boost for democracy in Africa after electoral chaos and bloodshed in Kenya, Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Earlier, the new parliament took office and elected Ghana's first woman speaker since the former Gold Coast colony gained independence from Britain in 1957. No party holds an outright majority in parliament, which was elected on December 7.
Gentle giant ambles into history
- Kufuor, at 6-foot, 3-inches, was known as the "gentle giant".
- His victory in the 2000 presidential election over John Atta-Mills, then vice-president to Jerry Rawlings, marked the former British colony's first peaceful transfer of power from one elected government to another.
- Kufuor, born in December 1938, is a Christian from the once dominant Ashanti tribe in the country's gold- and cocoa-producing economic heartland.
- Before entering politics, Kufuor obtained a law degree at Oxford University and started work as a private lawyer in 1965 in Kumasi, the main town of the Ashanti region. He was city manager and chief legal officer of Kumasi City Council from 1967 to 1969.
- Kufuor served as a junior foreign minister in a 1969-1972 civilian government sandwiched between two periods of military rule, and was a member of Constituent Assemblies that wrote new constitutions in 1969 and 1979. He joined a 1982 Rawlings administration but resigned after only seven months.
- He chaired the Ashanti Brick and Construction Company between 1973 and 1978 and was chairman of one of Africa's best known soccer clubs, Asante Kotoko, from 1988 to 1991.
- Kufuor made his political comeback several years after Rawlings introduced multiparty democracy in the early 1990s, but lost to Rawlings in 1996. He however won the next two presidential elections in 2000 and 2004.
