A run for president of Ghana in Gwinnett

As midnight drew near, Ghanaian presidential hopeful Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo continued fielding questions from the eager crowd.

One woman asked Akufo-Addo about his health care plan. Another demanded to know why Ghana was spending $20 million on an Independence Day celebration. Several people wanted to hear Akufo-Addo's vision for improving the West African democracy's lackluster economy.

The scene Saturday looked straight of Ghana, down to the Ashanti tribal chief seated in the front row.

Only the location was Duluth, more than 5,000 miles from the Ghanaian capital of Accra. And many of the roughly 200 Ghanaians gathered in the Gwinnett Civic Center ballroom couldn't vote in their native land.

Transcontinental twists are often part of the campaign trail in developing countries that have exported many of their most successful professionals. And metro Atlanta, with an immigrant population put at more than 600,000 by the U.S. Census Bureau, has seen stump speeches from Mexican gubernatorial hopefuls, politicians battling for prime minister of Jamaica and presidential candidates from Colombia to The Gambia.

Now add Ghana to the list — more than two years before the 2008 presidential elections.

"Those of us here usually have influence over people back home," said Sam Nyarko, a Suwanee industrial engineer who can't vote in Ghana because he has Canadian citizenship. Nyarko sends a sizable chunk of his salary back to family in Ghana and is paying a niece's way through high school there. "The choice is in Ghana, but it's important to rally support here."

In fact, Akufo-Addo, the country's foreign affairs minister, isn't the only Ghanaian presidential candidate to visit Gwinnett this year. Arthur Kobina Kennedy, a Ghanaian political exile who is now CEO of a health care system in South Carolina, campaigned in Lawrenceville and Suwanee during a July trip that also included visits to Ghanaian churches in downtown Atlanta. Both Kennedy and Akufo-Addo are seeking the nomination of the ruling New Patriotic Party.

Metro Atlanta has about 2,500 Ghana-born residents, including 600 in Gwinnett, according to 2005 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Community leaders claim the actual figures are several times that.

Whatever the number, they're drawing plenty of attention from politicians hoping to lead the Oregon-sized nation of 22 million.

"You need to come here and press the flesh," said Kwasi Agyeman, a Suwanee resident and information technology manager at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "The dollar that is raised here goes a long way there. You're going to see the MDs, the engineers."

Agyeman, who helped organize Saturday's event on behalf of a think tank called the Ghana Political Action Group, said Akufo-Addo didn't do any fund-raising this trip. That will come later.

Duluth was one of two stops — the other being Washington — for the Ghanaian foreign minister after last week's meeting of the United Nations in New York. In August, Akufo-Addo held the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council.

Akufo-Addo said he doesn't underestimate the importance of Ghanaian ex-patriots, noting that remittances from outside the country to Ghana now top $2 billion annually, up from $400 million in 2000. But it's the lessons that Ghanaians abroad are learning about business and democracy that excite him most. "They help us with ideas as well as money," he said.

Akufo-Addo, the son of one of Ghana's founding fathers, said the resource-rich country has established itself as a stable democracy in an otherwise chaotic part of Africa. Now he wants Ghana to pounce like an Asian tiger. "Why can't we transform ourselves and be a Malaysia, a Korea, a Taiwan?" he said during a 45-minute speech, flanked by twin flags sporting the distinctive black star of Ghana. "That's the challenge of our generation."

The Ghanaian presidential campaign comes during exciting times for the Gold Coast nation. The country remains euphoric over the surprisingly strong performance of the Black Stars — the national soccer team — in the World Cup. And Ghana, the first nation in sub-Saharan Africa to declare independence, will celebrate its 50th birthday in March.

But Ghanaians such as Louis Murphy, of Norcross, say the next president will have to solve some nagging problems. Crime is rising, Murphy said, and security is a prerequisite for any economic gains. "How can you work or do business if someone walking along the street kills you?" Murphy said over the din of conversations in English and Twi at Saturday's meet-and-greet .

Kennedy, the physician turned politician, addressed a similar crowd when he campaigned in metro Atlanta two months ago. He said the region has the third-largest Ghanaian population in the United States behind New York and Washington. The former student activist and political refugee is planning a return trip in December.

"To get seed money, we are relying on support abroad," Kennedy said. "But we are also relying on [expatriates] for ideas — ideas that matter."

Kennedy is focusing on American strategies for rooting out the corruption he said is stifling the fledgling democracy. The foreign vote, although small, will play a larger role in 2008, Kennedy said. Only recently did Ghana change its laws to allow dual citizenship and to give dual citizens the right to vote.

Franklin Roosevelt Owusu-Ansah, of Hiram, is among the Ghanaian-Americans who have taken advantage of the new option. And Saturday night, he was leaning toward Akufo-Addo. "I think I'm going to join his PAC," Owusu-Ansah said of the Atlanta-area political action committee supporting the foreign minister's candidacy.

Owusu-Ansah admitted to another motive, however. He wants to be a Ghanaian political activist. And he needs connections. No matter that the ballot boxes are half a world away.