New Patriotic Party flagbearer hopeful, Francis Addai-Nimoh has stated that the party should be guided by history to look beyond members of the current administration if it wants to win the 2024 presidential elections.

According to him, the electoral history of the country clearly shows that the party which has spent the last 8 years in power will lose a re-election bid if it elects its candidate from the Akufo-Addo-led government.

“The history of this country shows that after every eight years, if the party in power elects a candidate within the government it goes on to lose the election.

Citing some historical examples to back his claim, Mr Addai-Nimo who speaking an interview on Adom TV said: “The first example was in the year 2000, then Vice President Mills who was a sitting vice president and was elected as the candidate of the NDC but he lost. When it came to 2008 Nana Akufo-Addo was a minister in the government of President Kufuor. He was elected by the NPP as our presidential candidate and after 8 years of Kufuor leading the NPP in government we lost when we went into the election with Nana Addo. Then we came to 2016, the Mills-John Mahama administration. John Mahama had been a vice president in the NDC government and was seeking re-election after eight years for a third term for the party and the second for himself, as a sitting president, he lost.”

He went on to emphasise that the trend places a responsibility on the NPP to ensure it elects a candidate outside of the Akufo-Addo administration if it intends on “breaking the 8”.

“So when you look at this trend it should inform the NPP that if we elect a candidate from amongst members of the current government in any position as our flagbearer, we are only setting ourselves up for defeat,” he said.

Mr Addai-Nimoh added that he remains the only flagbearer hopeful within the NPP who has not served in the current government and possesses the additional characteristics of an ideal candidate to win the elections.

GA/SARA