Former Attorney General Nii Ayikoi Otoo has advised Nana Akufo-Addo’s contenders in the New Patriotic Party’s flagbearership race to stop dreaming about their prospects of leading the party in 2016 since the Delegates of the party are clamouring for the two-time flagbearer.
Otoo said it is sometimes more beneficial to quit a political race and regroup, rather than keep sailing against the wind, when it may be obvious that one’s chances were very negligible.
Three aspirants: MPs Francis Addai Nimo and Kofi Osei Ameyaw, together with former trades Minister Alan Kyeremanten, are contesting the party’s two-time presidential candidate for the standard-bearer slot ahead of the 2016 elections.
They all made the shortlist of five, after the party’s mini congress on August 31, to whittle down the number of seven aspirants to five.
One of the successful five, former Attorney General Joe Ghartey, has voluntarily withdrawn from the race.
An Electoral College of 141,000 Delegates will elect one of the remaining four at the party’s mega congress scheduled for October 18, 2014.
Party elders have called on the three other candidates who performed abysmally, to step down in favour of Akufo-Addo, who garnered more than 80 percent of Sunday’s super delegates’ congress.
Otoo, who subscribes to that school of thought, has urged the three to listen to the Delegates and advise themselves. According to him, the reality is that most of the Delegates are clamouring for the former foreign affairs Minister to have a third consecutive try at the presidency.
He told Joy FM’s news analysis programme News File Saturday that as a senior member of the party, he could predict that the results of the forthcoming mega congress will mirror those of the mini congress.
