Former president John Mahama is winning the opposition National Democratic Congress’ flagbearership election by a whopping 93%, former Youth and Sports Minister Nii Lante Vanderpuye has said.
The NDC is heading to the polls Saturday February 23 to elect a flagbearer ahead of the 2020 elections.
Mahama is battling six others including Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin and Joshua Alabi for the opportunity to lead the NDC into the 2020 general elections where he will likely face his old nemesis incumbent President Nana Akufo-Addo.
A survey conducted by the Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA) has already put Mahama ahead of his challengers.
According to the survey, Mahama is the favourite candidate, having polled 10,802 representing 64% out of 12,000 people sampled. Bagbin managed 303 votes (1.8%) as against Ekow Spio Garbrah’s 32.3%.
But speaking to Starr News on Friday Nii Lante Vanderpuye remarked that the margin of victory will be much higher than ASEPA’s prediction.
“Former President Mahama will win this upcoming congress with not less than 93%,” he told Starr News’ Ibrahim Alhassan, “because the NDC supporters are very clear in their mind what they are looking for. NDC supporters are very clear in their minds where they want to go. NDC supporters are certain about who is cable of taking them to that destination.”
Saturday’s elections, he said will just be a routine exercise for Mahama as he is the ideal candidate the party’s base are clamouring for to lead them into 2020.
“They are looking at experience, looking at marketability, the person’s stature, looking at the person’s knowledge and they are looking at the person’s resource.
“They have looked at all this and think that in this very difficult election that is coming up in 2020 where Nana Akufo-Addo is bent on hanging onto power, the only person with that requisite qualification, stature, experience, knowledge, and ability to be able to execute a very productive campaign is somebody who has been there before,” he said.
Meanwhile, one of Mahama’s challengers, Alban Bagbin has hinted that there will be there would be a shock in the contest for a flagbearer.
“People will have another shock,” he said in a recent interview an obvious reference to the defeat the NDC suffered in the hands of the NPP in the 2016 elections.
In that elections the NDC led by Mahama election was heavily tipped to be victorious by a research conducted by Editor of the Daily Dispatch newspaper and pollster Ben Ephson.
The research predicted a ‘one-touch’ victory for former president John Mahama.
According to the poll, Mahama would garner 52.4 per cent of the votes whilst his main rival Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) would get 45.9 per cent.
The outcome of the election was the other way round with the NPP’s Akufo-Addo winning.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM
