Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu wanted to withdraw Oquaye’s nomination – Muntaka

Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, the MP for Asawase has alleged that Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu (MP- Suame), the NPP caucus leader wanted to withdraw the NPP's nominee Prof Mike Oquaye from the race when it became clear during the counting of ballots that Oquaye had lost the election.

It has been widely reported that Oquaye obtained 136 votes, and the cameras showed one rejected ballot. However, Carlos Ahenkorah (MP- Tema West) snatched the rest of Alban Bagbin’s ballots during counting so that no one could tell clearly whether or not he obtained the remaining 138 votes.

There were no absentees during the voting by all 275 MPs-elect.

Speaking on Joy News in an interview monitored by GhanaWeb, the NDC’s Chief Whip refuted claims by the NPP leader that the election of Speaker for the 8th Parliament was based on consensus, that is, a mutual decision to confer the position on Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, the NDC's candidate.

At the beginning of the election process, the NPP nominated Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye, the Speaker of Ghana’s 7th Parliament, in a clear attempt to make Oquaye continue for a second term. Oquaye’s name was even printed in the brochure for the inauguration of the President and Vice President.

The Asawase MP explained that due to the ballot snatching incident, there was the need for the leadership to consult on the way forward.

Since the results directly indicated that the NDC candidate, Bagbin had won the race with 138 votes out of 275, but the ballot papers were no longer available, the leadership of both sides had to meet with the Clerk to Parliament and confer on the way forward. It was during that time that the NPP’s Leader suggested that he wanted to withdraw the nomination of his party’s candidate.

In announcing the results, the Clerk to Parliament stated that Alban Bagbin had won though he failed to mention the number of votes polled.

Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu used this to defend his claim that the position was given to Alban Bagbin out of leadership consensus.

Muntaka, however, stated that the Suame MP lied.

"In fact, we were insisting that the figure be mentioned but the Clerk said that we are here to do an election. ‘Mine was to announce who has won and Bagbin has won the election.’ In fact, it was a problem for me, I don’t know if you noticed, but we were raising objection but it was like let’s move on, let’s get this quickly done and I remember at a point in time my General Secretary was insisting that no you have to get him to do it again. Yes, he says he has been elected but he has to tell the whole world what each candidate got because it was 136, one spoilt and 138 and Hon. Bagbin got 138. So he was duly elected. And you see, the funny thing is when he Kyei saw this, then he came to say that can you, all the same, withdraw the nomination of Mike Oquaye but we said no,” Muntaka explained.

He added that the NPP MP's request was flatly rejected by his side who insisted that the only way such a thing could be possible would be in front of the whole house and not in a conclave where only the leaders were present.

“We said we won’t allow that because he was duly nominated and seconded. And once it was seconded it was before the house, so if you want to withdraw you have to go back to the floor and do another motion. We were not ready for that,” he stated.