President John Dramani Mahama has endorsed the candidature of Alassane Ouattara, as he prepares to seek re-election as the President of Cote d�Ivoire in the country�s general elections due to be held next year.
The performance of President Ouattara, who is 72 years old, has attracted a lot of commendations, both locally and internationally, having taken over a war-ravaged nation and built a robust economy, which is far ahead of Ghana, under President John Dramani Mahama, which had not been ravaged by any civil war.
Cote d�Ivoire�s economy has seen continuous expansion under President Ouattara � by a strong 8.8 per cent in 2013 and 9.8% in 2012 � having witnessed a steady recovery from the 2010-11 post-elections crisis.
Under 72-year-old President Quattara, the Gross Domestic Product of Cote d�Ivoire saw 7.60 per cent expansion in the second quarter of 2014, over the same quarter of 2014, over the same quarter of the previous year. But the International Monetary Fund estimates Ghana�s economic growth under the youthful first post-Independence President John Dramani Mahama to decelerate to 4.5 per cent in 2014, from 7.1 per cent in 2013.
�Cote d�Ivoire is fairly more stable and as long as the alliance between the PDC and President Quattara�s party holds, my expectation is that the government might win a second term� I guess that (Quattara�s re-election) will be a good thing for Cote d�Ivoire, having come out of a conflict that was created by a disputed election�I think that some stability in Cote d�Ivoire will be helpful to the whole sub-region.�
These were the encomiums and laudations President Mahama lavished on the 72-year-old President Quattara in New York for his excellence handling of the affairs of Cote d�Ivoire while speaking in his capacity as Chairman of the Authority of Heads of state and Government of the Economic Community of West African States.
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the man tipped to lead the New Patriotic Party as the 2016 Presidential Candidate, recently stated that despite being 70 years, his age would be no hindrance to his ability to provide the kind of leadership required to rescue Ghana from the quagmire of hopelessness it has been plunged into under the watch of President Mahama.
Nana Akufo-Addo argued that President Alassane Ouattara, despite his old age, was doing far better than President John Dramani Mahama, in spite of the so-called youthfulness of Mr. Mahama.
�72-year-old Alassane Ouattara is doing 10 times better for Cote d�Ivoire than 50 something year old Mahama for Ghana �we have a man who in three years has transformed Cote d�Ivoire, a country 10 years in civil war,� Nana Addo observed while in Tamale on his campaign for re-election as the NPP�s 2016 Presidential Candidate.
He pointed out that Alassane Quattara had done more to change the future of his country, stressing: �In 3 years he has restored peace and has stated rebuilding the economy of Cote d�Ivoire, producing rates of growth �that we are only dreaming about in Ghana.�
Nana Addo is convinced that aged should not matter when it comes to considering who to entrust with the mandate to rule a nation. �If his [Quattara�s] performance and the performance of Mahama are to be compared, then, maybe, we should have a law that says, nobody under 70 years should be president in Ghana. It may be better for us,� he stressed.
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