ACCRA: Ghana’s main opposition has nominated Nana Akufo-Addo to contest the 2012 presidential vote after he narrowly lost the last election in the west African nation seen as a democratic beacon.
President John Atta-Mills defeated Akufo-Addo, representing the New Patriotic Party, in a January 2009 run-off by just 40,000 votes out of a total of some nine million cast.
"I promise to lead the party to wrestle power from the current administration come 2012," Akufo-Addo, a British-educated lawyer, told party supporters late Saturday in the capital Accra.
"The NPP has spoken with one strong voice. The message is clear: the party is going for victory in 2012," said the 66-year-old who served as foreign minister under ex-president John Kufuor.
Official results from the party’s ballot had not been released, but the other candidates contesting the nomination conceded.
Last year, US President Barack Obama chose Ghana for his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa, lauding Atta-Mills’s "democratic credentials."
Ghana’s last elections were its fifth since a return to multi-party democracy in 1992. The stakes will be high for the next vote, with the country having recently discovered oil off its coast.
