Tame your supporters - Freddie Blay to NPP 2024 flagbearer hopefuls

Freddie Blay, the National Chairman of the NPP, has appealed to his party members interested in filing their bids for the slot of the 2024 flagbearer of the Party to pull on the breaks for now.

He said that although there is a vacancy for the flagbearer position in the party, seeing that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will no longer be able to vie for the position, New Patriotic Party members interested in campaigning should slow down.

He explained that such tendencies distract Ghanaians from what the president is doing in the respect of delivering on his mandate to the people.

“A lot of the people who may be interested in the flagbearership, particularly individuals who are interested may come from his cabinet or maybe appointees who should be working to execute policies and programs of his government but they may be more focused on nurturing their ambition towards the flagbearership. And that is where it is extremely negative and distracting and therefore the party frowns on that,” he explained.

This follows recent reports of some prominent members of the NPP announcing their decision to replace President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as the next presidential candidate of the party.

So far, there have been fliers of Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Trade Minister, Alan Kyeremanten, and Minister for Agric, Dr. Owusu Akoto Afriyie circulating on social media with many predicting the ability of these candidates to break the 8-year power swing in Ghana’s political space, reports myjoyonline.com.

“Today, I have read In the news that Dr. Akoto Afriyie has distanced himself from utterances that are apparently going around that he might have made and one or two things that he is supposed to have done. He is denying them and I expect one or two people that allegations are being made that they are interested in the flagbearership to do same. It is important.

“As it is now, by next year polling station elections, constituency elections, regional elections and national elections for the party will go on and people may be interested and prepare for that. You cannot stop them but all that we are saying is, we have regulations as to what to do and when to start these things. This year is too early,” he said.

Freddie Blay also used the opportunity to urge supporters to keep calm, as the opportunity to openly campaign and express interest in various positions will soon be declared.

“People in our party know and everybody knows that by the party’s constitution you cannot run for two terms so they think it is an opportunity to campaign. It is an attractive opportunity, so they lace up their boots and get ready to take over the flagbearship of the party.

“In principle, there is nothing wrong in terms of having the ambition to be the flagbearer of an attractive party like the NPP, but the thing is that it has the tendency to distract people from what the president is doing in terms of delivering on the mandate given to him.

“The Vice President and Alan Kyeremanten have not openly come out to distract what the President is doing. We discussed that yesterday and many of them have not sanctioned it. But we expect them to tell their followers to desist from that,” he explained.