NDC Race: Mahama will lose, I will win – Bagbin

Former President John Mahama will lose the presidential primaries of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) ahead of the 2020 national general elections, flagbearer hopeful Alban Bagbin has said.

According to Mr Bagbin, even though a recent survey by the Department of Political Science of the University of Ghana puts Mr Mahama ahead of other potential NDC flagbearer aspirants by a 58% rating, he does not foresee Mr Mahama winning should he decide to run again, adding: "I see me as the likely winner".

“He started from 100%, and, so, if that 100% has reduced to 58%, then it’s good news,” the Nadowli Kaleo MP told Gifty Andoh Appiah in an interview.

Explaining himself further, Mr Bagbin said: “We were all under him, all of us in the NDC were under him, he was the first gentleman, he had all of us supporting him – 100%, and, so, if that support has now reduced to 58%, which means that 58% of us are now supporting him, well, it’s good news for us the aspirants.

“It means as we go along, that will still be ebbing away and it’s most likely that by the time we get to the national primaries, maybe by the end of this year, it would have reduced to something below [58%].

“We are now going to go out there with our messages and we will give the good people of our party the option as to which personality and which message they prefer and I believe that by the end of the day, I don’t see His Excellency the former president John Dramani Mahama winning. I don’t see it,” Mr Bagbin said.

Mr Mahama is yet to announce his intentions regarding the flagbearer race in his party.

Should he decide to run again, he would be contesting Mr Bagbin, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Prof Joshua Alabi; former CEO of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) Sylvester Mensah, former Deputy Finance Minister Kweku Ricketts-Hagan and former Minister of Trade and Industry Ekwow Spio-Garbrah.