Blair keeps mum on EU presidency

(LONDON) - Former British premier Tony Blair refused to be drawn Wednesday on his prospects of becoming the first president of the European Union, keeping his focus firmly on lobbying for one of his pet causes.

On the eve of a Brussels summit to choose the new EU leader, Blair was in London drumming up foreign investment for Sierra Leone, helping the west African country to develop after a bloody civil war which he helped to end.

"What I think is, I think today I am going to focus on Sierra Leone," he said with a smile, when asked in an interview if he believed it would be a wasted opportunity if the EU chose a low-profile candidate, rather than him.

Although Prime Minister Gordon Brown has endorsed his predecessor as Britain's candidate for the president's job, Blair has refused to discuss the issue -- and looks set to maintain that line up to Thursday's EU summit.

The official line from the 56-year-old former premier's office is that "we have never engaged on questions about the EU issue."

His chances, while once strong, appear to have dimmed as EU nations have voiced doubts about his role in taking Britain into war in Iraq.

The field is now led by Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, with former Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga making a late bid.

It remains unclear whether Blair will attend Thursday's summit. But while he is often globetrotting in his roles as head of the Africa Governance Initiative and the Mideast Quartet's envoy, London is a short hop from Brussels.

In an interview with AFP and one other media Wednesday, Blair looked relaxed in an armchair of the conference centre after earlier receiving a rapturous welcome for bringing his star quality to Sierra Leone's investment drive.

"What is exciting about Sierra Leone is that it has enormous potential," he said in the interview. "Africa is a rich country with poor people and Sierra Leone is the clearest example of that."

Many people in the country will never forget his decision to send in British troops at the height of a brutal civil war in which 120,000 people were killed as rival factions fought over the country's diamonds.

Blair was mobbed when he visited the capital, Freetown, in January 1999.

But he says now he wants the country to be known for more than just successfully emerging from conflict.

"What it has got now for the first time really is a stable system of government and a president who wants generally to make change without corruption."

With huge iron ore and mineral deposits, under-fished waters and acres of fertile farmland, married to relative stability, Blair hopes Sierra Leone can attract hefty investment to fuel its already rapid development.

And he believes that President Ernest Bai Koroma has built a government that will avoid the trap of corruption when the cash from abroad -- commercial investment this time, not aid -- starts to flow in.

"There is an emerging group of young ministers... these are people of quality, these are people who talk the language of the international community. "I feel a lot more confident than I would have 10 years ago about the ability of this country to get itself clean and keep itself clean," he said.