Former President John Dramani Mahama has once again refused to state\u00a0whether he intends to stand for president in the 2020 elections on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).<\/p>\n
According to him, his focus at the moment is on contributing towards the party\u2019s restructuring and healing process to make the NDC a stronger force in the elections.<\/p>\n
Some supporters of Mr. Mahama, who was defeated in the last election, have consistently urged him to declare his intentions ahead of the next polls.<\/p>\n
Already, five NDC stalwarts have declared their readiness to lead the party into the polls, including 2nd deputy Speaker, Alban Bagbin and Prof. Joshua Alabi.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”lgOILxL7gk3gp2hWmy3cwS9aw8wJbp5R”]But speaking to NDC supporters in London, Mr. Mahama said he will soon make his intentions known.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many who have declared their intention to run when the nominations are opened. I\u2019ve been focusing on the reorganization and so I have not made any intentions and I said rightly that if I declare that I will run or I won\u2019t run it will have implications for the reorganization. If I say I won\u2019t run, then it means that the number of people who will intensify their activity to become the presidential candidates would increase in tempo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I say I will run, then it will also have implications on the reorganization exercise because then the focus will be the fact that I say I want to run so that is why I\u2019m doing the things I want to do. As the immediate past leader who led the party into the elections of 2016 and we lost, I have a responsibility to make sure that the party is put back on its feet so that whoever leads it has a very good chance of taking us into victory. And that is my focus at the moment,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
‘Mahama is our man’<\/strong><\/p>\n The 10 Regional Chairmen of the NDC, in November 2017,\u00a0backed the candidature<\/strong><\/a><\/span> of John Mahama for election 2020, even without the latter announcing his intention to contest.<\/p>\n The ten chairmen after a meeting issued a communique in which they urged the former President to consider running for the 2020 polls.<\/p>\n 58% of voters expect Mahama to contest<\/strong><\/p>\n A survey conducted by the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana also revealed that 58% of voters<\/strong><\/a><\/span> believe that Mr. Mahama, will lead the NDC in the 2020 elections.<\/p>\n Head of the Political Science Department, Dr. Bossman Asare, who made this revelation while presenting the survey findings, said: \u201cWe wanted to find out who the voters think should lead the party [NDC] in 2020, and overwhelmingly 58% of the candidates we interviewed said they believed Mr. Mahama will become the candidate and a number of them generally said they wanted Mr. Mahama to come.”<\/p>\n \u201cIt means when you look at the graph, some people were getting 2 percent. Prof Alabi, Ricketts Hagan, Spio Grabrah, I think all of them were getting less than 7% so we were all surprised,\u201d\u00a0Dr. Asare added after releasing the report in January 2018.<\/p>\n Bagbin, others via for NDC flagbearership slot<\/strong><\/p>\n Several members of the NDC including, Nadowli-Kaleo MP, Alban Bagbin, Dr. Spio-Garbrah, former NHIA boss, Sylvester Mensah, Joshua Alabi, former MP for La-Dadekotopon, Nii Amasah Namoale among others, have given indications they may contest the flagbearership position.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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