Deputy Communications Officer for the National Democratic Congress [NDC] Kweku Boahen has confidently declared that President John Dramani Mahama’s good looks and competence makes him the best candidate to occupy the country’s presidential seat for the next four years.

According to him, Ghanaians would definitely not vote for any political party whose candidate’s qualities pales in comparison to that of President Mahama.

He further expressed optimism that the NDC’s agenda to garner more votes in the opposition party’s strongholds is still on course.

“…our votes (this year) in the Eastern and Ashanti Regions, where members of the New Patriotic Party [NPP] claim are their strong holds, would move up by greater margins more than we have polled in the past years,” he said.

Commenting on the brouhaha over the Electoral Commission (EC’s) filing fees on UTV’s “Adekye Nsroma” programme, Kweku Boahen stressed that “persons who agitate against Electoral Commission [EC]’s filing fees are those who want to derail the commission’s work, which shouldn’t be so because filing fees paid by aspirants in both presidential and parliamentary primaries at the inter-party level is not much different from that of the EC. We must give the EC the peace of mind to effectively go about their job”.

The EC has come under heavy criticism for some of the demands it is making from the presidential and the parliamentary candidates for the December general election.

After an Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting on Thursday September 8, the EC announced that parliamentary candidates will have to file their nomination at a fee of GHC10,000 while presidential candidates are expected to pay GHC50,000.

However, the decision to charge high filing fees appears to have caught fire as some of the political parties have gone to court to place an injunction on the process.

The Convention People’s Party (CPP), the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), the People’s National Convention (PNC) and a host of other political parties, have accused the EC of using the price hikes as a means to stifle democracy; an assertion the EC has vehemently refuted.

But Kweku Boahen believes there is nothing wrong with the new filing fees introduced by the electoral body and told Lawyer Tweneboah Koduah, host of the show that “I won’t be surprised some candidates go for the forms just for showmanship or business purposes known to them alone.”

However, his co-panelist on the show, Member of Parliament [MP] for Fanteakwa South in the Eastern Region, Hon. Kofi Okyere Agyekum, dismissed his assertions on President Mahama standing tall over the other presidential candidates saying “Mahama would lose this year’s election massively due to his illogical manoeuvres as a bad driver”.