The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has dismissed assertions suggesting that there is a general acceptance of the Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia as the next flagbearer of the party.
The NPP is yet to open nominations for the position, however, the vice-president’s name and a few others such as the former Energy Minister Boakye Kyeremateng Agyarko, Trade and Industry Minister Alan Kyerematen, former Railways Minister Joe Ghartey, and the Agric Minister Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto are already making rounds as contenders.
Speaking with Kwaku Nhyira-Addo on The Asaase Breakfast Show after the just ended NPP delegates’ conference in Kumasi, the communications director of NPP, Yaw Buaben Asamoa, said all flagbearer hopefuls will be given a level playing ground to compete.
“This is not the first time a vice-president is contesting for the leadership of our party. I do recall the late Alhaji Aliu Mahama contested in the 2007 primaries of the NPP, though he didn’t win, he came third.
“And so as a sitting Vice-President he was enabled by our rules, which allow anybody and everybody to also contest. As sitting Vice-President, he didn’t have to resign or anything of that sort, so our rules are resilient enough to take care of all the contestants who want to,” Asamoa said.
He added: “We are not going to restrict anybody from being elected through the electoral college, which is the constitutional amendment from our experience when 17 people ran for the presidency of the party.”
We have to break the eight
Meanwhile, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has called on members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to remain united as the party works to break the eight-year power cycle.
He said internal competition should not divide the party, but rather strengthen and unite it in the lead-up to the election of a flagbearer for the 2024 presidential election.
“We cannot avoid competition. Competition there will be but let that competition help the party and not hinder the party so that we can break the eight in 2024,” Akufo-Addo said at the annual national delegates’ conference of the NPP in Kumasi on Sunday (19 December).
He said breaking the eight-year power cycle will benefit Ghanaians because it will help to “sustain the economic growth” seen under his government.
“We want to break the eight not just for ourselves, but for Ghana because we know the zigzag: NPP comes to clean for them to be polluted. This is not the way progress will be brought to our country.
“We need a secure period in office to make that irreversible change in the fortunes of our nation and we are capable of doing it. We will get a candidate that will unify our party and all of us will campaign to make that candidate the next president of the republic,” Akufo-Addo said.
Daring Mahama
He added: “We have spent more money in improving the circumstances of our people than any government in the Fourth Republic.
“So when you leave here, be proud that you have produced a government that has been more diligent in improving the lives of the people than any other government in the history of this country.
“All the things that we have done in government are things we thought about while in opposition. What is the one policy that the NDC and their leader John Mahama have thought about in five years that they have been in opposition? There is not one policy! The answer is zero.”
Fred Dzakpata
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