Mills, Botchwey supporters in hot pursuit

Campaign for the slot of Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is gradually heating up in the Northern Region. For sometime now “T shirts in NDC colours and embossed with the portrait of Professor Atta Mills have become a common apparel in town as though it were an election year.

This has given the impression that as far as the region was concerned the nomination of Professor Atta Mills’ presidential candidature was a foregone conclusion. However, unlike their counterparts in the Central Region no official statement has been made by the regional executive on the primaries.

Out of the blue, a group which identified itself as Northern Region Friends of Dr Kwesi Botchwey, at the weekend declared its support for Dr Botchwey, a former Finance Minister who recently declared his intention to contest the primaries.

A statement from the group acknowledged the democratic culture in the party, saying that would ensure competition, transparency and openness leading to the selection of a winnable candidate.

Acknowledging the virtues of Dr Botchwey, the statement indicate that “he possesses a record of performance dating back to the early 1980s and even beyond the border of the country where he has over the years acquired a wealth of experience and skills needed to deal with the country’s socio-economic problems.

The statement indicated that Dr Botchwey was part of the democrats in the party with the vision that could bring more people to the party. The group took a swipe at the NPP administration for being intolerant to divergent views and added that Dr Botchwey was more experience in handling such behaviours.

A member of the Regional Executive told “The Evening News” that the executive had not decided on any of the two contestants. The executive who spoke on condition of anonymity said since individual delegates would be expected to cast the vote in secret it was not worthy for a whole constituency or Regional Executive to declared its support for a particular candidate.

According to the executive members, he wished more than two candidates would appear so that the party would not be polarised, since experience had shown that an election between two person, sometimes becomes nasty. For him, the race just began “and may the better candidate win”, he added.