Bush to meet with African leaders
President George Bush is meeting with the leaders of several African nations later this month to celebrate elections held last year in each and hold them up as models of democratic progress on the troubled continent.
The presidents of Botswana, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia and Niger are meeting with Bush on June 13 to “highlight the value that the US places on supporting democracy across Africa,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said today.
Bush also plans to discuss trade, economic development, combating Aids, an upcoming summit of wealthy democracies and regional conflicts in Africa, McClellan said.
The elections last year saw each of the five nations either re-elect their leaders or keep the ruling party in power.
Botswana President Festus Mogae won a new term in October elections that saw his party keep its 38-year lock on power in one of Africa’s most stable, and most prosperous, democracies.
Ghana’s President John Kufuor, whose election victory in 2000 marked the country’s first-ever democratic transfer of power, won re-election in December. The country prides itself on leading the way for a new generation of maturing African democracies.
Armando Guebuza won in December as Mozambique’s ruling party candidate, but the voting was marred by such voter apathy it raised questions about the health of the emerging democracy in one of the world’s poorest countries.
November elections in Namibia saw the ruling party retain the presidency and its two-thirds majority in parliament in a landslide
President Mamadou Tandja of Niger, the country’s first elected president to complete his term without assassination or coup, won re-election in December.
