By Rebecca Ekpe
Members of Ghana’s Parliament are being impressed upon to accept the new reality and the paradigm change brought unto Ghana’s democratic dispensation by the current composition of the House and make amends by adjusting.
Assessing the Performance of the First Session of the Eighth Parliament, (which has witnessed a number of brawls among MPs, over voting on issues), Dr. Kojo Asante, Director of Advocacy Policy Engagement of the Center for Democratic Development says Politicians seem not to be in sync with the current trend or are simply refusing to accept the reality.
”They seem not to have adjusted to the new reality”, the reality that Parliament is no longer a clear Majority or Minority, as had been the case in the past Parliaments, according to Dr. Asante.
In the past Parliaments, it had been the Majority having its way, while Minority having a say. However, the 2020 General Election saw a considerable number of incumbent Members of Parliament, MPs, in the winning party, losing their seats, making decision taking quite an arduous task for the government.
Dr. Asante said, another change is for the fact that ”they had a Speaker from the the Minority Side, which has added to the complexities and the Politicians have failed to adjust”, Dr. Asante pointed out.
He spoke on the GTV Breakfast Show December 22, 2021.
Dr. Asante shared some of CDD Ghana’s Post Election Findings which supported the fact that the 2020 Elections had added some unique dimensions to Ghana’s political architecture that required that stakeholders exercised a bit more restraint and employed more discourse in dealings.
”Ghanaians themselves had mixed feelings about the outcome of the 2020 elections, which came to the fact that attendance in Parliament had to be enforced, which we saw during the Budget proceedings in the start, some MPs had to be flown in to shore up the numbers”, Dr. Kojo Asante noted.
