Former majority leader in Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has laid the blame for the NDC’s 2016 elections loss squarely at the foot of party flagbearer John Dramani Mahama.
The former President lost by over 1m votes to Nana Akufo-Addo in their 2016 elections face off, kicking him out of power after serving only one term, the first President in the 4th Republic to suffer such a fate.
Already the campaign is on to get Mahama to contest once again in 2020 as the flagbearer but one person who would definitely not be on board for that is Alban Bagbin.
Bagbin, who has his own 2020 ambitions, says Mahama is clearly to blame for the 2016 loss as he was the leader of the party at the time.
“We gave him [Mr Mahama] the opportunity and we saw the end results – we lost with a record over one million votes,” Bagbin said.
“…The good things that we did are credited to him, and, so, you don’t just take the assets, you also take the liabilities, so, he is mainly responsible for our loss.
“You lead, we follow, and, so, at the end of the day, when you mislead us, you cannot go and say that it’s somebody who has rather misinformed you to mislead us, no, because you take the decision; that is what leadership is about,” Bagbin added.
The Nadowli-Kaleo MP has been making moves to run for President when the next elections come around and it’s looking more likely that if Mahama stands again he would have to go through Bagbin to win the NDC’s flagbearership slot.