Shawdesh desk:

The 56-nation Commonwealth announced Ghana’s foreign minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey as the new secretary general of the organisation at a rancorous summit in Samoa on Saturday.

Botchwey was one of three candidates vying for the post—all who have backed calls for European nations to address their past of colonialism and slavery.

A former lawmaker, she has served as foreign minister for the past seven years, notably steering Ghana’s two-year tenure on the UN Security Council, ending December 2023.

She has backed the drafting of a free trade agreement among Commonwealth member states.

She also previously said she stands for reparations. “Financial reparations is good,” she said earlier this year.

A Commonwealth Secretary-General can serve a maximum of two terms of four years each. The incumbent is Dominican Baroness Patricia Scotland.

By convention, the secretary-general role is rotated around the body’s four geographical blocs: the Pacific, Asia, Europe, and Africa. It was now Africa’s turn.