Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joe Ghartey has dropped out of the main opposition New Patriotic Party’s flagbearership race.

The former Attorney General is one of five aspirants who qualified for the second phase of the primaries after Sunday’s super delegates’ congress, which reduced the number of seven contestants to five.

About 141,000 Delegates will elect one of the five - at a grand congress scheduled for October 18 - as flagbearer ahead for the 2016 elections.

Ghartey, however, told Sky FM in the Western Region that he has elected to voluntarily excuse himself from the race.

“I am not going to contest in the October 17 elections," the Esikado-Ketan Legislator said in his native Fante language. “We are all going to work for the NPP to come back to power," he added.