APIA, SAMOA  -  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.