NDC likely to win 2024 elections with a new candidate
EIU report triggers reactions in NDC, NPP
Joyce Bawah Mogtari, an aide to former President John Dramani Mahama, has reacted to a recent statement that the National Democratic Congress, NDC, can win the 2024 polls provided they replace Mahama as their flagbearer.
The Economist Intelligence Unit, EIU, report stated among other things that, “John Mahama, is reportedly considering running again,” adding that NDC should "try to revitalise its prospects with a fresh candidate.”
According to Bawah Mogtari, the former President and two-time losing aspirant (2016 and 2020) remained unperturbed by the findings of the report and that Mahama was the ideal man to lead Ghana next.
In an interview with Accra-based Citi FM, the former deputy minister said: “The NDC party is a very democratic one that any individual willing is able to contest and if you remember in 2020, President Mahama beat resoundingly all of his opponents to lead the party.
“I have watched the body language of the current executives, I have watched how our party faithful react to him, I have observed how many Ghanaians have watched how he has actually stood up tall in many ways.”
She continued: “As the statesman that he is, as the patriotic individual that he is, that people believe that he deserves a second term, to at least even if nothing, to bring to bear and to complete the process that he started which was truncated by the NPP.”
Mahama won his first term in 2012 beating incumbent Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, he lost the last two polls – 2016 and 2020 – to Akufo-Addo and is widely rumoured to be lacing his boots to contest in 2024.
According to EIU’s five-year forecast for Ghana released on April 13, 2022, the NDC has a higher probability to be victorious in the next general elections.
President Akufo-Addo’s tenure ends in 2024 with the NPP set to present a new candidate for the next elections. Mahama, if he contests will be going for his fourth straight contest.
The current government is faced with numerous challenges including unemployment, an economic downturn, and corruption among others which the London-based analysts believe will fuel citizens’ sentiments against the governing party.
“Our baseline forecast is that ongoing public dissatisfaction with the slow pace of improvements in governance—such as infrastructure development, job creation and easing of corruption—will trigger anti-incumbency factors and push the electorate to seek a change," the EIU report stated.
The EIU has, in the past, predicted correctly the outcomes of Ghana’s elections in 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020.
Read the full report below:
Joyce Bawah Mogtari, aide to the former President John Dramani Mahama