The main opposition National Democratic (NDC) has downplayed the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) report suggesting that the party cannot win the 2024 general elections with former President John Dramani Mahama as its presidential candidate.

The EIU projected that the NDC will win the 2024 polls but says it expects the biggest opposition party to revitalise its prospects with a fresh face on the ballot box rather than former President John Mahama.

“The next parliamentary and presidential elections are due in 2024. Under constitutionally mandated term limits, the incumbent president, Mr Akufo-Addo, cannot run for a third term”.

“The former president, John Mahama, is reportedly considering running again, but we expect the opposition NDC to try to revitalise its prospects with a fresh candidate,” the report said.

The report noted: “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 NDC, therefore, stands a reasonable chance of winning the 2024 elections”.

Apart from Mr Mahama, who is rumoured to be considering a comeback, a former Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Kwabena Duffuor, who also served as Finance Minister under President John Mills, has publicly expressed interest in becoming the flagbearer of the NDC ahead of the 2024 elections.

An aide to Mr Mahama, Mr Godwin Edudzi Tameklo, reacting to the report, said: “As a party, we will fight the next elections like a man fighting his estranged wife over the custody of his children”.

He noted that the NPP is bent on covering up its tracks as well as the rot it has created in government, warning that the next NDC government will uncover all those things after winning the election.   

He was of the view that the NPP will elect Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia or Minister of Trade Alan Kwadwo Kyeremanten as its presidential candidate and that since 1992, no first-timer apart from the late Jerry John Rawlings has ever won an election.

Mr Tameklo said former President John Agyekum Kufuor contested twice before winning in 2000 just like the late President Evans Atta-Mills and current President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

“We like to take a calculated risk with former President John Dramani Mahama, who polled over two million votes in the 2020 general elections,” he said on Accra-based Okay FM today, Wednesday, April 20, 2022