News:
August 5, 2010
Minority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu says the New Patriotic Party does not need a leader who will experiment when given the opportunity to govern.
“We don’t need any trial and error in our administration,” Mensah Bonsu said in an interview with sit-in host of Joy FM’s Super Morning Show Bernard Saibu on Thursday.
His comments come just two days away from the party’s groundbreaking national congress to elect a new presidential candidate to lead the party in the 2012 elections.
Five candidates –Nana Akufo-Addo, Mr Alan Kyerematen, Prof Frimpong Boateng, Mr Kwame Kodua, and Mr. Isaac Osei all seek the mandate of some 113,000 delegates who will vote on Saturday to elect a flag-bearer for the party.
The leader of the NPP in Parliament says the party needs a strong and effective leader who is capable of reconciling the various factions within the party to make it battle-ready for elections 2012.
“First of all you want to have a true party person; one who knows the tradition of the party; one who has worked with the party for a long time to know the signs and arts of government,” he enumerated.
Like what obtains in the US and the UK, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu would personally prefer one who has served in the country’s legislature and is well versed in politics of the law making body.
He also hopes the delegates will vote for a person who was part of the eight year administration of ex-president Kufuor as a minister of state in order to correct some of the mistakes of that administration – mistakes, he said led the defeat of the party at the last elections in 2008.
“I am expecting to see one who has been part or associated with the Kufuor administration long enough to have known the strengths and weaknesses of that administration [to be able] to effect corrections or avoid the pit falls of the Kufuor administration.
“Kufuor did so well for the party but human as he was, you may see one or two flaws that anybody who was associated with him closely would be appropriately positioned to avoid the mistakes because without doubt it is some of the mistakes that sent us into opposition.”
Of the five candidates, only Nana Akufo-Addo and Isaac Osei have been Parliamentarians before (the latter still is) and the former together with Mr Alan Kyeremanten also served in Mr Kufuor’s cabinet as Ministers of state.
Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu would not publicly name which of the candidates best fits the position, saying “I am the minority leader; I am to position myself to work with anyone of them the party elects.”
Story by Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana