Alan-Bawumia ticket 'easier said than done': Who will be the president? - Mpiani asks

Kwadwo Mpiani, a former Chief of Staff during the John Agyekum Kufuor administration, has kicked against a proposal for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to settle on its flagbearer and running mate without a primary.

Those proposing the said ticket are asking the party to pick Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia and outgoing Trade and Industry Minister Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen for their 2024 presidential election ticket.

Mpiani is, however, concerned with the fact that the proposal does not take into account whether the respective personal visions of the two individuals align and more importantly which of them should run as the president if adopted.

"It is easier said than done because you can't just pick anybody as your running mate if you are not sort of compatible; if you can't work with the person," Mpiani said in an interview on Joy FM on Friday.

"If you can work with anybody in the party to be your running mate then maybe what he (Atta Akyea) is saying can be done but even the problem as I see here is that who is going to be the Presidential candidate and who is going to be the running mate?

"In politics, we all have our visions, so if it is my vision to be a President and not a Vice President, why do you join me with another person to become a Vice Presidential candidate?" he asked.

Alan Kyerematen on January 5 tendered in his resignation as minister with the view to focus on his presidential ambition.

Two major proponents of the Alan - Bawumia ticket are Abuakwa South Member of Parliament Samuel Atta Akyea and Nana Akomea, a former MP and now Managing Director of Intercity STC Coaches Limited.

Whiles Akomea holds that the pair should figure out who becomes the president and the vice, Atta Akyea believes Bawumia as the presidential candidate will bode well for the party.

"I believe in it (Bawumia - Alan ticket) with all my heart for the simple reason that I don't believe in any arrangement in which you cannot talk about what we call the tribal balance," he said on the January 3, 2023 edition of Good Evening Ghana programme on Metro TV.

He said their forebears did not envisage a situation where at all costs the NPP needed to be led by an Akan, reference to Bawumia being a Northerner, "I don't believe in it.

"I believe it is about time that this New Patriotic Party (NPP) should change our posture for once and say that this is the most powerful party with a sense of national unity and we are looking at meritocracy rather than the tribe of a man," he stressed.

The NPP's presidential primary will take place later this year ahead of the busy 2024 election season with the party looking to 'Break The Eight' - reference to the 8-year cycle where a ruling party loses power as has been the case since 1992.

SARA