Ghana’s Unlikely Democrat Finds Vindication in Vote

“Ghana will rise again. The people want real leadership again. They have seen the light.” JERRY JOHN RAWLINGS. Pius Utomi Ekpei/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

From The New York Times:

IT was the eve of a historic election, and the reluctant father of Ghanaian democracy was in the mood to talk. Eager, in fact. Jerry John Rawlings, the nation’s former military ruler turned civilian president, could hardly sit still, sliding from one edge of a leather couch to the other, slapping a visitor’s boot for emphasis, using his huge, meaty hands to chop the air.

Almost eight years after voters rejected his chosen successor, Mr. Rawlings, a man who looms larger than almost any other in this iconic nation for African liberation, was on the verge of vindication.

“Ghana will rise again,” he said in his rumbling bassoon of a voice reaching a growling peak. He did not know yet that his party, the National Democratic Congress, would once again seize the presidency. The second round of the election, held last month, had not taken place yet. But he liked his party’s chances.

“The people want real leadership again,” he said in a long and sometimes rambling interview at his home here. “They have seen the light.”

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