It was at the age of 73, twenty years after leaving power to John Kufuor, that this half-breed of Scottish father and Ghanaian mother died. “I am announcing the suspension of our political campaign […] after news of the death of our party founder and former president of Ghana, Jerry John Rawlings, ”John Mahama, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) main opposition candidate for the December presidential election, wrote on Twitter. “May his soul rest in peace,” added Mr. Mahama, also former President of Ghana. His party did not give further details on the causes of his death.
An emblematic course
After a first coup in 1979, Jerry Rawlings, rugby player’s build and piercing eyes, had succeeded in taking the reins of the country during a second coup in 1981. He left power in 2000 after being elected twice. Born on June 22, 1947 in Accra, he entered the military academy in 1967. A year later, he joined the Air Force where he excelled as a pilot. First known for his image of a young “revolutionary with integrity”, Jerry Rawlings seized power twice at the age of 32 and then 34, combining a national-populist discourse and a “progressive” political lineage.
From 1981, he became head of the “Provisional National Defense Council” for eleven years and led a regime that did not concern itself with human rights, before having to give in at the beginning of the 1990s to the wave of multiparty politics. . But enjoying a real aura, he was elected at the end of 1992 president of the IVe Republic of Ghana, with over 58% of the vote in a democratic ballot, tarnished by accusations of fraud. He was re-elected in 1996 in the first round, in an election considered transparent. After 19 years and seven months in power, he bowed out in 2000 with the election of John Kufuor, the opposition party candidate at the time, as head of the former British colony.
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