A flagbearer hopeful of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Alban Bagbin, on Saturday officially picked up his nomination form to signal his readiness to participate in the party’s upcoming flagbearership race.
He becomes the eight and last candidate to formally join the race as nominations closed on Saturday.
Bagbin had earlier refused to pick nomination forms claiming, among other things, that the filing and nomination fees were too high and that the National Executive Committee had breached the party’s constitution by not consulting the Council of Elders before announcing the election guidelines.
He joined seven other flagbearer hopefuls to petition the Council of Elders to intervene in the matter.
Before the Council of Elders took a decision, some persons who claimed to be supporters of Mr Bagbin picked up nomination forms on his behalf, but Alban Bagbin initially rejected them due to his contentions.
The Council of Elders’ intervention caused the filing fee to be slashed by GHS 100,000, reducing it to GHS 300,000, but the fee for the nomination form was maintained at Ghc20,000.
The Council also pushed for the primaries to be held on January 26, instead of the initial January 19, 2019 date, and pushed the nomination deadline to Saturday December 8, to allow for persons who could not pick forms more time to do so.
David Jawara, a member of Alban Bagbin’s campaign team confirmed to Citi News that the flagbearer aspirant had officially accepted the forms that were picked up on his behalf and sent a letter of notice to that effect to the party.
“We the constituents decided to go for the forms for him and he rejected it, with the reason that there were some lingering legal issues that they had petitioned to the Council of Elders so he was waiting for those issues to be addressed. When we picked the forms, the filing fees was still GHS 400,000 which he and other aspirants were vehemently opposed so at the at the end of the day it was reduced from GHS 400,000 to GHS 300,000 so based on that, he has now changed his position and has accepted the forms. He gave us a letter of acceptance to be sent to the national executives for them to amend his records. He has now accepted personally and officially to go into the contest.”
David Jawara said they have started taking endorsements from supporters all over the country and will pay the GHS 300,000 filing fee as soon as they gather the required number of recommendations.
Former President Mahama, Stephen Atubiga, Alban Bagbin, Sylvester Mensah and Joshua Alabi, have all picked up their forms.
Ekow Spio Garbrah and Nurideen Iddrissu have also picked their nomination forms.
Goosie Tanoh recently expressed his optimism about his chances of leading the party into the 2020 elections after he also picked up his form.
Meanwhile, two of the flagbearer hopefuls, Kojo Bonsu and Elikplim Agbemava have pulled out of the race.
Elikplim Agbemava has since declared his support for former president John Mahama.
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Citifmonline
