Internal Wrangling Affecting PNC’s Moves To Elect Flagbearer, Other Executives — Attik Mohammed

The electoral fate of one of the oldest political parties in Ghana, the People's National Convention (PNC), hangs by a thread due to internal party wrangling for a long time now.

While a faction led by the chairman, Bernard Mornah, says there's no preparation for an internal election towards the selection of a flagbearer; the other faction steered by a former flagbearer of the party, Edward Nasigiri Mahama, has a different plan.

The latter contested the 2016 polls as flagbearer and placed fifth with 0.21 percent of the total votes cast.

Speaking on how prepared PNC is towards a congress with barely five months to the 2020 election, the General Secretary of the party, Attik Mohammed says, the processes should be finalised by end of August.

“At the congress, we hold the two activities concurrently whereby we elect the flagbearer and the next set of national executives who will be running the affairs of the party for the next four years. So hopefully, by the end of August, we should be heading towards congress. If anyone accuses me of not wanting the party is lying; to put it bluntly. This is because, I have said that, the tenure of all the current executives has expired and we should have renewed our mandate through Congress by December last year.

But the PNC's youth organizer, Awudu Ishak, is oblivious of any such plan to elect a flag bearer for the December polls.

“After the declaration, I started meeting interest groups at our party. I met, Mr. Edward Mahama, the national executives, all the 16 regional chairmen of the party, and the regional secretaries. I went on a tour of the Upper East Region. I will want to implore by appealing to our council of elders to take the opportunity to step in and take leadership of the party and form an ad-hoc committee and let them go with the EC officials to affirm by popular acclamation to those that are contesting to be executives and move ahead to conduct the congress to elect the flagbearer for the party because there is no time on our side. It is not because of their challenges that my ambition will be in vain.”

Already, the Executive Secretary of the Importers and Exporters Association, Sampson Asaaki Awingobit has declared his intention to contest as a presidential candidate in the 2020 general elections on the ticket of the People's National Convention (PNC).

The former PNC Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central, David Apasara, has also served notice to contest in the polls to change the dwindling fortunes of the party.

The PNC has contested all national elections since the inception of the fourth republic apart from the 1992 parliamentary election, which was boycotted along with other opposition parties.

The last time the PNC elected new officials was in 2015 when Edward Mahama became its presidential candidate for the 2016 elections.

The PNC assures all political parties that it will embark on internal retooling that will culminate in the election of our Presidential candidate who will offer Ghanaians an issues-based campaign.

---citinewsroom