(Bloomberg) -- Ghana’s former trade minister, Alan Kyerematen, plans to run for president in next year’s polls.

Kyerematen, 67, will seek election as an independent candidate after defecting from the ruling New Patriotic Party where Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia is favored to get the party ticket.

The politician known as Alan Cash stepped down as minister in January to pursue his presidential ambitions. He has previously served as Ghanaian ambassador to the US and a trade adviser at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

“I believe with unwavering conviction that I am the only leader who can guarantee the economic and industrial transformation of our country,” he told a room of supporters at a hotel in the capital, Accra.

President Nana Akufo-Addo is completing his last constitutional term in office next December, leaving the ruling party NPP open to a new leader. The main opposition, National Democratic Congress, and the NPP have dominated politics since 1992. No independent candidate has ever won elections in the West African nation.

Kyerematen’s new Movement for Change aims to “move Ghana beyond the duopoly of the two main political parties,” he said. “This will break divisive partisanship in governance in Ghana and bring an end to the winner-takes-all political syndrome.”

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