John Agyekum Kufuor

John Kufuor (2008)

John Agyekum Kufuor (born December 8, 1938 in Kumasi ) is a Ghanaian politician and was President of Ghana from January 7, 2001 to January 7, 2009 .

education

Kufuor first attended Prempeh College in Kumasi. He later studied law at Oxford University , where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics, philosophy and politics in 1964. In 1961, Kufuor was accepted as a lawyer at Lincoln's Inn .

Political career

He has been active in politics since his return to Ghana in the late 1960s. Initially, Kufuor worked as a senior judicial clerk and administrative officer for the Kumasi City Council.

He was a member of constituent assemblies twice: first in 1968/1969, when the military government, in power since a coup on February 24, 1966, initiated a return to democracy, and a second time in 1979, when Jerry Rawlings joined the next military government in existence on January 13, 1972 had brought a bloody end.

In 1969 Kufuor was one of the founders of the Progress Party (PP), ten years later he was involved in founding the Popular Front Party (PFP), whose candidate Victor Osuwu lost to Hilla Limann on July 9, 1979 . In the parliamentary elections on June 18, 1979, his party won 42 of the 140 seats. Until the coup in 1972 and Rawlings' second coup on December 31, 1981, he was a member of parliament and was temporarily imprisoned after the coups.

diplomat

He was Deputy Foreign Minister from 1969 to December 1971 and headed Ghana's delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations as well as to meetings of the Organization for African Unity (OAU) and the summit of the non-aligned countries in Lusaka in 1970. In the same year he was at the head a Ghanaian delegation visiting the Soviet Union , Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia . The 1972 coup interrupted his diplomatic career. In 1980, he accompanied the Ghanaian President Hilla Limanns to the OAU summit in Freetown as his party's foreign policy spokesman and deputy opposition leader . He also traveled to the USA with a delegation of Ghanaian MPs and held talks with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in 1981 .

minister

Rawlings, who had been in power again since the end of 1981, invited leading representatives of the parties united in the All People's Party (APP) to join the government in January 1982 . Kufuor became Minister for Local Administration. In this office he advocated decentralization of the administration. Dissatisfied with the direction of Rawling's rule and the massive disregard for human rights , especially in the early days , he resigned after seven months.

president

He later co-founded the New Patriotic Party (NPP), which made him a candidate for president on April 20, 1996 with 1,034 of 2,000 delegate votes. In the elections on December 7, 1996, he received 39.6% of the vote, Rawlings was re-elected in the first ballot, as in 1992. His party, which had won 60 of the 200 seats in 1996, nominated him again on October 23, 1998 as the top candidate and elected him as party leader.

In the 2000 presidential election, he received 48.4% of the vote in the first ballot on December 7, 2000. In the second ballot, he prevailed against Rawlings previous Vice President, John Atta-Mills with 57.4% of the vote. On January 7, 2001 he took up his new office. The NPP had won 99 of the 200 seats in the parliamentary elections, with a by-election the number rose to 100. John Atta-Mills was also his main competitor when he won the first round on December 7, 2004 with 52.45% for another four years Office was confirmed. The NPP won the parliamentary elections with 128 of the 230 seats. Kufuor attaches particular importance to the promotion of education and training in its country and the development of the infrastructure. During his tenure, inflation was contained and solid economic growth achieved. Since he has already started his second term, Kufuor was no longer allowed to run in the 2008 presidential election.

For 2007 he was elected President of the African Union .