Chairman of the Council of Elders of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Hackman Owusu-Agyemang says the party’s interest will be better served if the flagbearer aspirants could agree on a consensus candidate.’
The party, he said, is therefore pressing upon the aspirants to consider a strategy where some should step down.
According to him, he personally believes getting a consensus candidate will help the NPP tremendously.
The Council of Elders is said to be holding crucial meetings with the flagbearer aspirants in an attempt to talk some of them out of the race.
Ten individuals, including the Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, and former Trades Minister, Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, have all picked nomination forms to contest for the flagbearership position.
He said, “From my personal view, I think that if we can look at the issue of getting a consensus candidate it will help us tremendously.”
“We’ve pressed upon them what we call negotiation in political strategy, and if the strategy demands that some people must step down, I think in the interest of the party and its unity, it will not be out of place.”
“Even if after the electoral college, we keep talking as a fraternity, then we should be able to understand ourselves.”
Mr Hackman Owusu Agyemang is one of the people who firmly believe that the NPP’s decision to allow as many as 17 people to contest for the flagbearership position ahead of the 2008 elections, was the reason the party lost that presidential election.
The party elder called that single decision a “major mistake.”
In a media interview in August 2021, he said “[It was] in the year 2008 where we had 17 of our people in competition to be president.”
“If at the time we had the understanding that it will not help us and the best thing to do was to have one or two compete for it, we would not have lost that election.”
“That did not help us break that 8-year cycle that was beginning to establish itself. That was a major mistake,” he added.