Ashanti Regional Minister, Alexander Ackon is proposing, President John Mahama be retained as the National Democratic Party’s presidential candidate for the 2020 elections.

He believes the party will be able to better organize itself for the 2020 elections with President Mahama as leader.

“From my heart, I wish the president will come back but we don’t know the other forces which are going to come, but from what we know of this president, I would love that he comes back to contest.”

President Mahama lost to the New Patriotic Party’s Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo last week in a poll which became a historic seventh consecutive general elections in Ghana

While Akufo-Addo won the popular votes in six regions, representing 53.85 of the total valid votes cast, President Mahama polled 44.40 percent.

President John Mahama meets President-elet Nana Akufo-Addo

Mr Akufo-Addo at 72 will be the oldest president in Ghana’s history. President Mahama on the other hand has become the first one-term president since the country returned to democratic rule in 1992.

In post-election analysis, many have wondered if President Mahama, with this performance should be allowed to lead the NDC during the 2020 elections.

While some sections of the party believe that he shouldn’t, voices such as that of the out-going Ashanti regional minister Alexander Ackon are of the view that he is the party’s best bet.

Mr Ackon wants supporters of the party to put the defeat behind them and prepare to recapture power in the next elections.

He says it is important to manage what he describes as a “weak defeat” in a manner that helps them keep their hopes up. He does not believe the NPP won the elections. He said the NDC rather lost.

“NPP did not win the elections, NDC lost. Just tabulate from 2012 and look at the votes in terms of percentage…go to NDC areas and look at what actually happened. So NDC lost, NPP did not win.

 “So reorganising and coming back in the next four years is the simplest thing to do, provided we stay united,” he added.

He said the party’s rank and file must accept blame for the loss and work towards addressing their shortcomings.

“For me, we should all accept the fact that we have lost and therefore we are blamable if there is a blame but we should look at what went wrong instead of what went wrong.

Commenting on the transition process, Mr Ackon expects the new administration to see to the completion of projects initiated by the outgoing government.