Alban Bagbin and John Mahama
Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, the Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, defeated former President John Mahama in the presidential primary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Nadowli-Kaleo Constituency on Saturday.
The only victory over Mr. Mahama in the entire country happened in the Nadowli-Kaleo Constituency of the Upper West Region where Mr. Bagbin has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for 27 years.
He polled 383 votes as against 367 votes garnered by Mr. Mahama.
Mr. Bagbin, who was a thorn in the flesh of Mr. Mahama during the campaign, insisted that he was the right person to lead the NDC to victory in 2020.
Mr. Bagbin later conceded defeat but made it clear that he did not hate the former president.
The MP said the various candidates were only selling their ideas to the delegates to lead the party ahead of the 2020 general elections.
“We are politicians and you have to be in this game for some time to know that anything is possible, particularly in Africa because there is so much uncertainty,” Mr. Bagbin told Citi FM, an Accra-based radio station in an interview.
“And so as you go round trying to show who is a better candidate, you will definitely disagree with the other contestant…Anytime you disagree, people say you are a critic and sometimes they even say that it is an attack on the person, but that is what democracy is about; that is what competition is about.
“But at the end of the day he knows me very well and he has worked with me for a long time, and he knows I don’t harbour ill-will or hatred. So he was quite receptive, we had a good chat and we know that with that culture we could do more for the party and this country.”
When Mr. Bagbin heard that Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, MP for Odododiodioo and a staunch supporter of Mr. Mahama had ruled out all other candidates in the race, he described his colleague as a wishful thinker, who is full of “sound and fury.”
“At the end of the day we will see whether his wishful thinking will come to pass,” he said ahead of the polls.
“Even though he (Nii Lante Vanderpuye) is a Member of Parliament, he does not know what democracy means; and so he is fond of using words to show that he is rather full of sound and fury and not reason,” he said.
From Eric Kombat, Tamale