Senior Vice President of IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil, has asked flagbearer contenders to devise better campaign pledges to win the votes of the electorates in Election 2024 instead of attacking the promises by the former president.
He explained that all reforms started with promises without plans which the political elites should take a cue from to enable them to give the electorates and the citizenry better campaign promises than former President Mahama had done.
“All these reforms starts with promises and pledges such as Free Senior High School which started with a promise, there were no plans and other politicians should take a cue from this and they should all give us better plans than President Mahama has done,” Mr Bentil reiterated.
According to him, he had no reason to doubt the promise by the former President Mahama to scrap the existing benefits for Article 71 office holders because such a pledge by the flag bearer hopeful of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was what it took to win elections.
“This is the kind of issue that wins elections because no matter what you think about the former president, if indeed you can trust he will keep to his promise, it will make him attractive to you, and as far as I am concerned, no matter what I think about him, he is a fine gentleman, he has govern this country before and nothing will make me not to believe him.
Mr Bentil contended that such kind of issues won elections and no matter how people think of the former president, if they trust he could keep to his promise and would make him attractive to the electorates and Ghanaians would vote for him since he is a fine gentleman and had govern the country before.
He indicated that he had no doubt former President Mahama would keep to his promise when he becomes president again if he is a serious politician and stressed that “so I have no doubt President Mahama can, I hope he will do this thing that he has promised because if he is a serious politician and he wants to capture the kind of votes he wants to win, he should stick with this.”
Former president Mahama speaking at his campaign launch recently promised to cancel the retirement benefit given to members of the Executive known as ex-gratia when elected as president in 2024.
He pledged that his government in its first year in power would also take measures to cancel ex-gratia given to other members of the remaining arms of government.