Mahama’s Time Is Past…Sly, Bagbin, Open Fire

The circumstances under which John Mahama was made presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in 2012 and 2016 are not same as what pertains currently in order to make him an ideal candidate for 2020, Sylvester Mensah, former MP for Dadekotopon has said.

Mr. Mahama would not be an attractive political commodity that could crystallise into an electoral victory for the NDC in 2020, Mr. Mensah, explained on Joy News’ current affairs programme, The Hard Truth, this Wednesday.

“At the time [Mahama] burst onto the political scene he was the best for our party and for this country and he played his role. But we have gotten to a completely new era that requires a completely new set of [leaders],” Mr. Mensah, a former Chief Executive of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) said in the interview.

This is arguably, the loudest jab from Sylvester Mensah so far on reports that John Mahama was strategizing for a third coming as Presidential candidate.

Mr. Mensah revealed that with Mahama as candidate for 2016, there was voter apathy and a feeling of disillusionment within the party.

“You could also tell that there was anger, there was frustration, there was disaffection and I guess that these are very loud statements emanating from the numbers. It tells clearly that we have gotten to a crucial junction in the life of our party that we need to re-strategise. We need to put in place a new set of vision that can accommodate the emerging trends and expectations of our party,” Mr. Mensah said.

This situation, according to Mr. Mensah, requires a completely new strategy that is viable enough to galvanise the entire party into a power-grapping attitude with a requisite whet appetite for electoral victory.

Mr. Mensah gave his disapproval of a John Mahama return at time dust is yet to settle on reports that Member of Parliament for Nadowli Kaleo, Alban Bagbin, had said it would be a mistake to have John Mahama as NDC 2020 flag-bearer.

Mr. Bagbin noted: “We are now going to go out there with our messages and we will give the good people of our party as to which personality and which message they prefer and I believe that by the end of the day, I don’t see His Excellency the former president [Mahama] winning. I don’t see it…

“…“We were under him, he was the first gentleman, so he had all of us supporting him 100 percent, so if that support has now reduced to 58 percent, which means that 58 percent of us are now supporting him, that is good news for us [the aspirants]….It means as we go along, that will still be ebbing away and it is most likely that by the time we get to the national primaries, it would have reduced to something below”, Alban Bagbin told Joy News’ Gifty Andoh Appiah.

By: Halifax Ansah-Addo