NPP Presidential aspirant, Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen believes that his youthfulness, dynamism and energy offer him a huge advantage over Nana Akuffo Addo and the other aspirants in Saturday’s flag-bearership race. Alan Kyerematen who conceded defeat to Nana Addo in the 2008 primaries of the NPP, believes that one of his advantages is the fact that he falls within the current generation of world leaders who are predominantly youthful in age and in brains. “People are beginning to realise that age is a critical factor in global politics now. All over the world, I will say that the emerging leaders of the most powerful countries in the world are all below the age of 50. “You go to the United States of America, President Obama just turned 49, go to the most conservative country, the United Kingdom, they have just elected a leader who is just 43 years and his deputy is about 39 years, you go to France, Sarkozy is just around 50,...so the world is changing, that is the new trend in global politics...In a sense, the party itself may not have changed but the dynamics in the politics could have changed and that is how I believe that I have the best chance.” Alan was speaking in an interview with Citi FM Thursday, August 5. About 113, 000 delegates nationwide are expected at the polls on Saturday, August 7 to elect a flag-bearer to lead the NPP in the 2012 general elections. The slot, which is being contested for by five candidates is largely seen by political observers as a straight fight between 2008 flag-bearer Nana Akufo-Addo and Alan Kyerematen, who is trying his luck for the second consecutive time. Alan rounded up his nationwide tour a few days ago and is convinced that the youth, who form majority of the delegates, represent his biggest hope to annexing the coveted flag-bearership slot. “...what has changed is the composition of those who would make the decision on Saturday. Now, you have many more people of a different kind of orientation and also of a different age bracket because I can assure you that majority of the polling station executives could be put into the category of the youth. “Now, they are going to take the decision and they will be looking for someone who I believe is young, dynamic, energetic and charismatic and that is why they themselves have struggled to take up positions within the party and so they have an interest in who becomes their leader...” Asked if he would concede victory to Nana Addo again should there be a tie between him and the 2008 NPP flag-bearer, Mr. Kyerematen said that issue is currently not on his mind. He would not be drawn into a lengthy discussion on the controversial STX deal but said briefly that “when we talk about housing in general, let us try and analyse the issue on whether we are doing social housing or we are doing commercial housing because it has implications for the kind of decisions that we take, with or without STX we have to try and do that kind of strategic analysis so that moving forward we will be able to deploy our resources in the right direction.” Source: Citifmonline/Ghana