ACCRA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Ghana's ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has endorsed President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as its candidate for the December 2020 presidential election, the General Secretary of the party John Boadu has said.
The decision was after the nominations for candidates closed with only the sitting president filing for the position.
"The National Council of the party endorsed the president's candidature after it accepted the report of the party's national vetting committee that President Akufo-Addo was the only candidate who had filed to contest for the position," Boadu said.
Akufo-Addo will be going into his fourth consecutive presidential contest since 2008 when he lost to late President John Evans Atta Mills. In 2012, Akufo-Addo lost again, this time to the sitting vice president John Dramani Mahama, who had taken over the reins of government after the death of Mills. Akufo-Addo won in the 2016 general election.
Analysts project that the 2020 general election would be a contest between the records of the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, led by Mahama and that of the NPP government under Akufo-Addo.
The NPP believes strongly in the performance of the macroeconomic indicators under its watch, compared with the macroeconomic challenges under the previous government, caused mainly by a crippling power crisis between 2013 and 2015.
Mahama received a massive endorsement by the rank and file of the opposition party in February 2019, polling 95.23 percent of votes during the presidential primaries to lead the NDC in the December elections.
The opposition party also prides itself on its record of "massive" infrastructure projects across the country, including schools, health facilities, markets, energy projects, and roads, among others.
The West African country is gradually moving towards a two-party democratic nation, as its parliament has just the NDC and the NPP represented.
The December presidential contest is therefore expected to be a two-horse race between the sitting president and the former president. Enditem
