South African Council of Elders Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the Group Chairman of Allied Consortiums, Mr Benjamin Kofi Quashie thinks the quality leadership of former President John Dramani Mahama makes him better fit to lead the NDC into the 2024 general elections.
He describes President Mahama’s leadership as being able to solve party differences at all levels and as a grassroots person which has been demonstrated with the appearance of all regional chairs of the NDC who picked the nomination forms on his behalf.
“If you talk of the grassroot of the party, they are represented by the National Executives of the party which elects the flagbearer, which includes chairmen of all the regions. I think that, they just did the right thing for picking up the forms for the former president” he stated.
Speaking on the “Pulse Show” on Joy News when his views were sought in the NDC flagbearership race, he however averred that the former president didn’t beseech them to pick the forms on his behalf but, “This is a coalition that came up as result of the good works President Mahama has done” he shared.
According to the SA Council Chair, the regional chairpersons of the NDC have realized that amongst the four persons putting themselves forward to lead the NDC, no one comes close to president Mahama.
He adds, “the NDC have always seen the former president as their presumptive leader and there is absolutely no one currently in the NDC race whose achievements comes to par with that of President Mahama”.
“Let me put on record again that, the Regional Chairman represents the party at the regional level and spiral down to the branches and to the constituencies”, he explained.
Mr. Kofi Quashie further argued that, this election is about the grassroots and in his view President Mahama and his team have continually engaged the grassroots and there is no one that has done better than him.
This, according to him, must be the reason why the Regional Chairmen picked the nominations forms on his behalf.
Responding to the seeming discontent emanating from the actions of the regional chairs of the NDC, Mr. Benjamin Quashie contended that, democracy is about competition and what he expects to happen is not for anyone to run down any of the candidates vying to lead the NDC.
“What should actually engage the minds of the NDC is how to wrestle power from the NPP administration and to indicate to Ghanaians how the NDC intend to take them out of the economic doldrums the country finds itself”, he noted.
In his view, the the party believes going into the 2024 elections, one person who can help them do this easily is President Mahama. He adds, “the unity of the party has not been cardinal to any of the four leaders better than President Mahama and what he has done to ensure the unity of the party”.
“President Mahama has unified any other branch of the party in terms of differences that arose at our party’s congress and the party’s conference. This quality leadership is what would unite and win us the 2024 elections” he ended.
