2020 elections: We want you! – Crowd 'roots' for Mahama at Unity Walk

It appears Former President John Mahama has won the heart and admiration of many in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as more and more persons continue to vouch for his leadership prowess and push for him to contest in the imminent 2020 elections.

It will be recalled that all ten regional chairmen of the party endorsed John Dramani Mahama as the ideal candidate to lead the party to Election 2020.

The regional chairpersons who had a meeting with Mr. Mahama on Thursday, 9 November in Accra told the former president “to consider the request of teeming supporters of the NDC and Ghanaians to lead the party to the 2020 general elections.”

Findings from a survey conducted by the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana (UG) in January 2018 also revealed that 58% of Ghanaians would want former President John Dramani Mahama to contest the 2020 elections.

Out of the 5000 respondents that participated in the survey, 2,900 held the assertion that the former President was the best candidate for the NDC flagbeareship position.

This was reinforced when at the party’s Unity Walk held in Kumasi Saturday April 29 saw a teeming crowd of supporters chant out the former President’s name as the preferred candidate to lead the party into the coming elections.

We want you!, we want you!, the crowd chanted continuously, pointing fingers at Mahama during his address on working in unity to ensure the success of the party’s branch elections in the various regions.

John Mahama in his speech made comments to the fact that he is confident of God’s choice of a leader from among the contenders to lead the party to victory in 2020.

“I know there are a lot of qualified persons over there who can contest for the flagbearership position, God himself will elect a leader from among them who will lead us to victory in 2020”, he said, to which the crowd responded in disagreement, pointing to him instead and insisting that he contends.

He urged nominees at the branch level to cooperate to ensure that the branch elections are a success as the party’s victory in 2020 depends on the strength of the party at the root level.

“We are doing branch organization and from all indications, things are going quite well compared to previous times where there hardly were people to contest on the branch level but we are hearing of people fighting for Branch executives in the various regions now”

“Let’s take time and work well on the branch elections because the foundation of every party is from its branches. If the branches are strong, the party is strong too. They have given us guidelines, let’s be sure to abide by them so we won’t have disparities between us”, he continued.

Mr Mahama is yet to declare whether or not he will contest to become the flagbearer of the main opposition party.

Other interested persons including Professor Joshua Alabi, former Rector of the University of Professional Studies and Sylvester Mensah, former Chief Executive of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) have declared their intention to contest for that position in the party.

The NDC is currently undergoing restructuring after losing the 2016 elections to the New Patriotic Party (NPP).