(Bloomberg) -- Ghana's former leader John Mahama won a bid to contest next year's election as the candidate for the main opposition party, setting up a third consecutive face-off with President Nana Akufo-Addo.
The National Democratic Congress chose Mahama, 60, out of seven candidates as its flagbearer for the 2020 presidential race, the nation's Electoral Commission said Saturday in the capital Accra.
Mahama previously served as president when he won the 2012 vote against Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party, before losing to his rival four years later. The two parties have dominated politics in West Africa's second-biggest economy where there's been a change in government every eight years since 1992.
While Mahama was known for his straightforward style of speaking that resonated with many voters, his administration failed to solve a crippling energy crisis that resulted in routine 24-hour power cuts. The country also had to turn to the International Monetary Fund in 2015 for a bailout after a currency crisis boosted the inflation rate to 20 percent and caused the government's debt obligations to soar.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ekow Dontoh in Accra at edontoh@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Shamim Adam at sadam2@bloomberg.net, John McCluskey
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