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Chaotic scenes erupted after the ruling party deputy tried to seize the polls during the vote for speaker of parliament.
Ghanaian soldiers intervened overnight to quell a clash between opposing parties in parliament ahead of the body’s inauguration scheduled for Thursday, witnesses said.
Chaotic scenes erupted after a ruling party deputy tried to seize the polls during the vote for speaker of parliament. The ensuing confrontation lasted for several hours until the army intervened and national television broadcast the drama live.
“There was a total collapse of law and order,” said Deputy-elect Kwame Twumasi Ampofo of the opposition Democratic National Congress. “Watching a member of parliament and a minister of state stealing ballots … was so embarrassing.”
The new parliament will be divided virtually in the middle between the two main parties, posing the risk of stagnation with key issues on the agenda, including how to reverse an economy hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.
President Nana Akufo-Addo, who narrowly won re-election in the December 27 vote, will also be sworn in on Thursday.
His New Patriotic Party lost 32 seats in the 275-member parliament.
‘Complete disaster’
Ghana stands out as a stable democracy in volatile West Africa, although the elections were marked by accusations of fraud by the opposition and five people were killed in the violence.
Observers, both Ghanaian and foreign, considered the elections to be generally free and fair, but some controversy persists over the work of the electoral commission.
More than a dozen opposition MPs were charged with illegal assembly on Monday after protesting the election results.
Footage from the nightly confrontation in parliament showed some of the lawmakers yelling and fighting with their rivals.
“This is history that is being done wrongly. We have to bow our heads in shame, ”said ABA Fuseini, another incoming opposition MP.
“They thought they could bring in the army to intimidate us, but we will resist it. The whole world was watching and everyone must be worried. It is a testimony that Nana Akufo-Addo did not win the elections, “he added.
Samuel Abu Jinapor, an elected deputy from the Akufo-Addo New Patriotic Party (PNP), described the events in parliament as a “complete disaster”.
The NPP won 137 seats in the 275-member parliament, after losing 32 in the elections, leaving it equal to the 137 held by the NDC.
A lone independent won the remaining seat.
On Wednesday, an NDC deputy was suspended for legal reasons because he had dual citizenship, reducing the ranks of the opposition to 136.
Severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the West African nation of 30 million people is expected to see its economic growth plummet this year to its lowest level in 30 years, at 0.9 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), from 6.5 percent. in 2019.
The government also faces the urgent task of controlling mounting debt, which surpassed 70 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in September.
“If we don’t see consensus building, I can bet we will see that the NDC will make life very difficult for the executive over the next four years,” said Rasheed Draman, executive director of the African Center for Parliamentary Affairs. .
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