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1. The outcome of the 2020 Ghana parliamentary elections points to a near-hanging Parliament, the first in the Fourth Republic of Ghana. A Hung Parliament can be explained in terms of a legislative arm of the government, which does not have a single political party with enough seats to secure a full majority of members and votes.
2. Currently, according to the Electoral Commission, the New Patriotic Party won 137 seats in the recently concluded elections, with the National Democratic Congress obtaining 136 seats. There is an independent candidate and Sene’s electoral results are still outstanding.
3. The two main political parties have notified their intentions to challenge some of the results of the parliamentary elections in court. Regardless of the outcome of the court proceedings and the results of Sene’s elections, Ghana will witness its first Hung or Near Hung Parliament in the history of the Fourth Republic.
4. Depending on how the relationship between the minority and the majority is handled, a Near Hung Parliament can be a recipe for governance disaster, particularly given how polarized along extremely partisan lines we are and have been as a nation. It could be used as a compensatory mechanism to deliberately make the country ungovernable, especially when there is no astute politician handling parliamentary affairs as Speaker.
5. In my opinion, the current single Parliament that we have not yet inaugurated should be chaired by someone who enjoys the support and respect of both parties, and who has the pedigree and experience in parliamentary practice. It would be politically suicidal for a Near Hung Parliament to be chaired by a person who was very accomplished in his chosen career, but a political novice and a person with no experience in parliamentary “real politics”.
6. That the parliamentary business would be characterized by more resentments, acrimony and bitterness, is unquestionable. Without someone who has been there before and who has been able to win the affection of both sides, parliamentarians will physically fight as they do in other fledgling democracies, and government affairs will stagnate at all times.
7. Despite the fact that there are challenges and probable legal proceedings against some parliamentary seats, it appears that based on current figures, coupled with the fact that Fomena’s independent candidate is likely to trace his roots back to the PNP, the mandate to determining who the President of Parliament should be would fall to the NPP.
8. If this were to happen, and given that the PNP since 1992 has never allowed its Speakers of Parliament to serve two terms, your best bet to replace the current Speaker should be Freddie Wosemawu Blay, 68 years old.
9. Ideally, this position should be for a politically neutral person who enjoys respect on the other side of the dividing line. Unfortunately, politicians on many occasions since 1992 have tended to favor the appointment of partisan rather than neutral people in this and other key positions. More importantly, the recent conduct and politically inopportune resignation of Martin Amidu has closed the doors to all cross-party appointments and the quest to look beyond political parties by considering people who are not tainted with partisan colors for the appointments.
10. Therefore, the person who is to be appointed Spokesperson will be, in any case, a known or surreptitious person. Granted, I will choose Freddie Blay over everyone else. I may not be amused by his partisan style of politics, but, so far, in the NPP, he is the only man who, in my opinion, has what it takes to run Parliament-type affairs that we are likely to have next year. .
11. In the run-up to the 1996 election, I recall that Freddie Blay played a key role in the Grand Alliance that culminated in the selection of the late Kow Nkensen Arkaah as JA Kufuor’s running mate. That same year, he ran as Ellembelle’s parliamentary candidate on the People’s Convention Party list and won.
12. He was enlisted by the NDC that he had won the majority of seats in the 1996 parliament, culminating in the NDC’s full support for his nomination as second vice president.
13. Served as a deputy for Ellembelle for twelve years or three consecutive terms and for two terms, both the NDC and the NPP supported his selection as first deputy speaker of parliament under Kufuor.
14. Freddie Blay left Parliament to contest and win the PNP’s first vice presidential post in 2015. Following the suspension of Paul Afoko as national president, Freddie Blay acted in turbulent times and led the party to win the 2016 election. elected party president and won other elections in 2020.
15. True to its nature of being able to keep factions at bay and manage them in order to work together, it has been able to stop the constant infighting between the PNP in power and the Presidency. During the days of Ala Adjetey, Odoi Sykes, Harouna Esseku and Paul Afoko, there was always tension between the party and the Presidency. But in his tenure as PNP chairman, he has been able to keep things quiet and maintain cordial relations between the party office and Jubilee House. The ability to recognize conflicting factions and prevent them from colliding to create discord certainly doesn’t come cheap. Freddie Blay is undoubtedly doing something that his predecessors could not do to maintain calm and strong relations between the party in power and the government of the day.
16. I’ve spent two days thinking about who in the NPP might typify these characteristics and have the “Wosemawu Experience” type, but for now it’s hard. It seems that Blay has the unique experience that makes him more suitable than anyone else, in the NPP for Ghana’s first Near Hung Parliament.
17. At times you may have sounded too partisan in your public speaking to the chagrin of many well-meaning observers of democracy. But the fact is, he has the track record, the competence, and the experience in handling sensible situations in potentially conflictive situations, and he’s highly unlikely to open up to minority “disrespect” given his pedigree. These are the sine qua non requirements for a Near Hung Parliament to function effectively in terms of governance for the betterment of all.
18. This is a free political consultancy for the PNP. Whether or not the government and parliamentary processes are smooth also depends on the caliber of the person appointed as spokesperson. The election of Freddie Blay can have a tremendous impact in securing some parliamentary peace for the executive arm of government.
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