Mills Pens Down Six

The newly elected flagbearer of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Prof John Evans Atta Mills, says he could count as many as six very competent people within the rank and file of the NDC who could easily pass as his running mate for the 2008 presidential elections.

He said he is in no rush to pick a running mate, dismissing assertions that he has already settled on Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni, his running mate for the 2004 general elections.

According to him, he would embark on a wide consultation with all the major stakeholders in the party before deciding on a candidate, saying that any of the six people he has in mind easily qualify to be his running mate.

However, he said this time around he prefers to sit back and allow the party to select someone for him and that he would be prepared to work with anybody the party chooses for him. He told reporters in a chat at a media encounter in Accra.Meanwhile, name like John Dramani Mahama, Member of Parliament for Bole-Bamboi, Alban Sumani Kingsford Bagbin, Minority Leader of Parliament and Dr Benjamin Kumbuour, Minority Spokesperson on Finance have already come out as potential running mates for the former Vice President.

Other names like Alhaji Gilbert Idi, former Northern Regional Minister and a current lecturer at the University of Development Studies, Nyankpala, as well as the former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings are also make the rounds.

As is becoming the norm that most presidential candidates of the various political parties would trade up North for their running mates, speculation is rife that Prof Mills' running mate would be chosen from one of the three Northern Regions, come what may.