Discipline must be restored in NPP - Subin MP

New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for Subin, Eugene Boakye Antwi has admonished his party to take restorative measures in instilling discipline in the party.

The MPs call comes after his party failed to ensure the election of its nominee for the position of Speaker for Ghana’s 8th Parliament of the Fourth Republic.

Speaking in an interview with Okay FM a day after the elections, the MP said the events that led to Professor Aaron Mike Oqauye losing the race to former First Deputy Speaker, Alban Sumana Bagbin was a result of deep-rooted indiscipline in the party.

“President Akufo-Addo and the party leadership must sit down. There was a strong connection between Asiedu Nketia and his MPs yesterday, do we have same in our party? With everything that was done by Muntaka and his colleagues, Asiedu Nketia was in the chamber giving them signals on what to do and what not to do. All these are things we should learn lessons from. The discipline in the party must be restored... people go behind you and complain that you are suspending people as an MP. But what do you do to people who are insubordinate, don’t we suspend them from the party? If discipline has broken down in the party, they should just let us know,” he said.

Though having the same representational number of 137 as the NDC, the NPPs guarantee of winning the race was on the declared support of the Independent Member of Parliament for Fomena, Andrew Amoako Asiamah in the election where voting was highly anticipated to be along party lines.

However, when votes were finally counted at the end of a rather chaotic process, Mr Bagbin won with 138 votes against Mr Oqauye who obtained 136 whiles one vote was counted as rejected.

The NPP following the defeat has decried the refusal of the Clerk of Parliament who supervised the election allow for open balloting instead of a secret ballot.

With blames being cast on who may have betrayed the party, some MPs have come out to say their leaders should have insisted on an open ballot where the whipping system would have been effective in ensuring victory.