Sitting on Minority seats in Parliament will spiritually bind us ahead of Election 2024 - Afenyo-Markin

The Majority Leader in Parliament, Alexander Afenyo-Markin has stated that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) caucus in Parliament remains the majority side in the House.

He said the NPP side will not relinquish that position unless a directive from the Supreme Court based on an interpretation of Article 97 under the present circumstances. 

He added that with a few weeks to the December 7, 2024 elections, accepting the Speaker’s declaration and occupying the Minority side of the House was a bad omen, which he wouldn’t wish on himself and his party. 

“I should go and sit on the minority seat? Spiritually, it’s not even good. We have three weeks to elections. I should go and sit on minority. Is that my seat? I won’t do. I will never do it."

"That’s not my rightful place. I should go to the Minority side and spiritually make myself a Minority and bind my colleagues? No, we won’t do that. No NPP person will do that,” he said. 

Alexander Afenyo-Markin, who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Effutu Constituency was speaking to reporters Monday morning [Nov 11, 2024] outside the Supreme Court room after a hearing of the suit seeking an interpretation of Article 97(1) (g) and (h) with regards to the vacancy of four parliamentary seats. 

Narrating a series of events leading up to the declaration of the four seats, he accused the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin of secretly championing an agenda orchestrated by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to take over parliament. 

To that effect, Mr Afenyo-Markin stated that the Speaker was in the position to end the standoff between two sides by simply directing the members of the NDC to move back to their side of the house. 

“We are decent minded people. We respect the court. We respect the law. Our doors are open to the Speaker’s call.

"Political decisions, are for common sense approach. We believe in a common sense approach in solving this and the common sense approach is for Mr Speaker to direct the NDC side to go back to their seats,” he said.