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Majority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu declined to comment on whether the Member of Parliament for Fomena who was fired from Parliament would be welcomed back to Parliament by the NPP when the session resumes on Monday.
In an interview on the Accra-based radio station, Oman FM, the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs indicated that as “it was a directive given by the Spokesperson [of Parliament]”To remove Mr. Amoako Asiamah from the House, if the President wishes to reverse his previous decision, certain procedures will need to be followed.
Before Parliament went into recess before the general election on December 7, 2020, the Speaker of Parliament, Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye, ordered the post of Fomena MP Andrew Amoako Asiamah to be declared vacant.
This was because the PNP had written to the president stating that Asiamah was no longer a member of the party after his decision to re-contest Fomena’s seat as an independent candidate.
“With all intentions and purposes, [Asiamah] is no longer a member of the party [NPP]. He has spoken publicly as an independent and has presented his papers to compete against the party. [NPP] in his official candidate as independent on December 7, 2020, “said the Spokesperson on the day the directive was issued.
Asiamah, after some disagreements with her constituency executives, did not compete again in the party’s primaries held to select a candidate for the 2020 parliamentary elections.
He, instead, chose to contest the seat as an independent candidate.
The decision moved the leadership of the PNP to Fomena, including President Akufo-Addo, to ask him to rescind his decision so that the preferred PNP candidate, Philip Ofori-Asante, would have the upper hand in the December 7 elections.
But lawyer Asiamah kept his position and went ahead with the contest, beating the PNP candidate by more than 2,000 votes.
It obtained 12,805 votes, defeating the PNP candidate, Philip Ofori-Asante, who obtained 10,798 votes, and the NDC candidate, Christina Ama Ranson, who obtained 2,608 votes. Another candidate, Eric Appiagyei, had 158 votes.
Following the outcome of last week’s parliamentary elections, lawyer Amoako Asiamah’s team has indicated that they are not opposed to meeting with the PNP leadership to chart a new course with the Party after his removal from the party before the elections.
Special help to the elected deputy, Seth Oduro has said that the team has nothing against President Akufo-Addo and the PNP party, however, considering how lawyer Asiamah was expelled from the party, the responsibility falls on the Party to make the first move.
Currently, the fired Fomena deputy has the weight of tipping the balance in favor of either of the 2 main political parties, as the seats are essentially evenly distributed between the PNP and the NDC in parliament.
From the results of the EC for the parliamentary elections, NPP currently has 137 seats and NDC with 136 in the next Parliament with a total of 275 seats. Sene West, however, remains pending after a court order.
Asiamah is the only independent candidate in the next Parliament.
It is alleged that the PNP has already initiated actions aimed at convincing Asiamah to sit with them in Parliament to allow the party to win at least 2 seats to become a majority if they are declared the Sene West seat or a majority of a seat if it should. be declared for the NDC.
Asiamah has yet to publicly comment on which side she chooses to sit in parliament.
But PNP General Secretary John Boadu has already sent signals that it would not be in the Party’s interest to reconsider its relationship with lawyer Asiamah.
Majority leader Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, who is Suame’s deputy in Kumasi, is thinking along similar lines.
Meanwhile, he revealed that he is aware that some members of the NDC are also talking to him, trying to convince him to sit with them.
