Former Ghanaian president John Dramani Mahama on Thursday shored up his bid to reclaim the top seat by unveiling his running mate.
Mahama announced Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang as his running mate for the 2020 elections, hailing her as a “distinguished scholar, a conscientious public servant and a role model.”
Opoku-Agyemang served as Ghana’s education minister between 2013 and 2017 under Mahama’s presidency.
She has also served in various other positions both locally and internationally, traits Mahama is confident will help him clinch back the presidency.
Among some of the positions Opoku-Agyemang has served include being Ghana’s representative to the Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), serving as the Chancellor of the Women’s University in Africa located in Zimbabwe and serving as the first female Vice-Chancellor of a state University in Ghana.
The West African nation is set to hold its general elections on 7 December. Ahead of that, the government last week unveiled a voter registration exercise to enable citizens exercise their right to vote in the poll.
Mahama will come up against the incumbent President Nana Akufo-Addo who defeated him in the last election.
The December vote will mark the third time that the two leaders have gone head to head against each other for the presidency.
Akufo-Addo defeated Mahama in the 2016 election with 53.8 percent of the vote, cementing the West African nation’s reputation as a leading democracy in the region.
President Akufo-Addo said last week the COVID-19 pandemic would not derail the planned elections.
Citing examples of countries such as South Korea, Poland, Mali and Malawi, who have all held elections in the midst of the pandemic, President Akufo-Addo noted that “it is not beyond Ghana to join these nations in organising a successful general election, even in the midst of the pandemic.”
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