Steadying a roller coaster Parliament

As Ghana’s 8th Parliament prepares to wind down, it appears that the drama that gave birth to it in January 2021 has not quite gone away, catapulting the two sides into yet another bout, even if with less flourish. 

Whilst there has been a lot of shouting with veins popping up on necks and foreheads, thankfully, there have been no brawls or chewing of papers just yet.

Because neither party secured a truly comfortable parliamentary lead at the last election, nerves have been rather frayed over the past four years especially on the NPP side as it struggled on occasions to get government business through.

Drama

Ordinarily, with elections imminent, Parliament is usually dull as most MPs focus on traversing the republic in an anxious bid to retain their seats, with parliamentary work somewhere towards the back of their minds.

Who wants to stay in Accra speaking big English in a parliament on its deathbed when there are critical votes to be harvested in the hinterlands?

But then it appears the NDC in Parliament had a surprise. They asked the Speaker to declare that by filing nomination papers to contest the 2024 elections on another ticket, four sitting MPs had vacated their seats and ought to be uprooted from the house.

When Speaker Alban Bagbin granted their request, the NPP MPs went apoplectic with rage whilst NDC MPs gloated, declaring that this was the dress rehearsal of the real thing to come in December.  

Of course, the sentiments on either side trickled onto social media, with barbed jokes flying both ways.

When the Supreme Court stepped in the next day to pull the brakes on the Speaker after a successful injunction application by the NPP side, the jokes quickly turned on the NDC, with savage mockery for being a ‘24-hour Majority’, whilst the NDC claimed the court was in bed with the NPP as usual. 

The NDC, uninterested in yielding its newfound majority status, insisted that what the Speaker had put together, let no court put asunder, so to speak. Each of the two sides dug in, intending to go the long haul. 

Constitutional questions

In all of this political posturing and sabre-rattling, overnight armchair constitutional law scholars and experts in political history and the theory of separation of powers have suddenly crawled out, seemingly from nowhere.

It is difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, because mostly, views are fuelled by partisan considerations laced with ignorance. The issues are varied but I believe they come down to a few questions.

Can a sitting MP on the ticket of Party A, or who is independent, and who files to contest the next election on another party’s ticket or as an independent candidate, be said to have vacated his seat per Article 97(1)(g) of the constitution?

Does it lie in the mouth of the Speaker to make that determination, or is that power reserved for the high court, per Article 99(1)(a)?

What is the proper role of the Supreme Court in all of this, and what power does the apex court have over the Speaker’s rulings?

What optics?

One is entitled to wonder why the NDC is hell-bent on the four MPs being booted out of Parliament, with a consequent ‘promotion’ to Majority status, and why the NPP is equally hell-bent on resisting this scenario, especially when this Parliament is on its last legs with little to do and will die on January 6, 2025. What exactly is the point?

Well, as former President Mahama declared after the Speaker ruled, this was God’s sign of imminent victory in the December elections.  

The NDC parliamentary caucus leader, Dr Ato Forson, also declared the party would use its majority to abolish the e-levy, a claim repeated by Dr Ayine.

Someone also remarked that since the NDC now dominated Parliament, it made sense to grant it the presidency in the elections.

Clearly the NDC is looking at the electoral capital it can rake in from this showdown and the boost it made to the party base.

Of course, from the NPP perspective, these psychological tools needed to be shot down, in addition to the practical difficulty of getting whatever business is left through the house, as a parliamentary minority. In any event, nobody relishes being demoted from Majority to Minority.

From these perspectives it is understandable that both sides are breathing fire, with smoke billowing out of their ears. 

Excellent opportunity

I think the current situation in Parliament is an opportunity for the Supreme Court, vested with powers to interpret the constitution, to put to rest what Article 97(1)(g) means and how it is triggered, because it will surely keep popping up in future parliaments.

A constitution cannot, and must not, always sit in calm waters. From time to time, it must ride the rough storms of the political seas as society evolves, even if at times it appears to be coming apart. In due course it becomes sturdy as vexed questions arise and are settled with some finality.

As I pound away at my laptop on Sunday night, I cannot help but wonder how things will pan out on Tuesday when Parliament resumes sitting.

I hope that the fiery stalemate between the two sides will find a way of being resolved through cool heads.

We cannot have a ‘Supreme Court’s Majority in Parliament’ and a ‘Speaker’s Majority in Parliament’ at the same time.

In any event, both sides cannot fit into the space on the majority side of the house. Something must give. 

Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng,
Head, Communications & Public Affairs Unit,
Ministry of Energy.
E-mail: rodboat@yahoo.com