Majority vs Minority or Not: How the major tides in Ghana’s hung Parliament have turned in 48 hours

GhanaWeb Feature by Etsey Atisu

Some people say that Ghana’s 8th Parliament has been the meeting point of all the unbelievable fun that all of the past parliaments could never have given them.

And it all started in the early hours of January 7, 2021.

That morning, in the most unanticipated, unimaginable circumstance – the first of its kind, the results of the election of the Speaker of Parliament went in favour of the National Democratic Congress Members of Parliament, who were the Minority caucus at the time. Their candidate, Alban Bagbin, who was at the time too, the longest-serving MP in Ghana’s Parliament, narrowly won by a vote margin.

Unfounded theories thereafter were made to the effect that there was either an error in the counting process, or that one of the members of the Majority Caucus (the New Patriotic Party members) did their colleagues on the other side of the House one costly favour.

This outcome became a unique one, or maybe not so much because ahead of this, there had been a lot of the surprises that had started in the previous year when, after the December 7, 2020, election, the results for Parliament showed an unusual equal split in the middle. On both sides of the House, they had equal numbers of seats; 137 to 137, with only one other seat being an independent candidate, separating the two sides.

That seat, Fomena constituency, was originally one of those that had been won by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) until its MP, Andrew Amoako Asiamah, decided to run in the 2020 polls as an independent candidate (which he eventually won) due to the feeling that the party had treated him unfairly. These notwithstanding, after everything had settled, Asiamah still chose to caucus with the NPP in Parliament, giving them the urge in the House and with that slim upper hand, the Majority side status fell at the doorsteps of the ruling party.

It was a very slim, lucky situation but soon, and with the political, legal semantics that would happen in the next few years, the National Democratic Congress (NDC)’s Minority status would grow a little slimmer, albeit briefly. This was when the Assin North seat, with James Gyakye Quayson as its MP, was declared vacant and an order was given for his name as a legislator to be expunged from Parliament, by the Supreme Court in May, over a dual citizenship legal tussle.

But after quickly getting back to work on the political grounds, and with much strategising and intense campaigning, the NDC re-secured the seat for themselves, levelling the field once again.

The playing field was once again active for parliamentary business to proceed.

The NPP spells that could have made them lose Majority status:

It is worth mentioning that within the period of January 2021 and October 2024, two sitting MPs on the NPP ticket died in office: Philip Basoah of Kumawu, who died on March 27, 2023; and John Kumah of Ejisu, who died on March 7, 2023. At the time of his death, Kumah was also a Deputy Minister of Finance.

Thankfully, the NPP also did its homework well and successfully resecured those seats in their names during the bye-elections that were held in both places by the Electoral Commission to replace the deceased persons.

But with the 137-138 representation in Parliament, the NDC MPs did not always have an easy way out of things, especially too when sometimes, the NPP bullied them way more. A case in point happened when Parliament was approving the controversial Electronic Transfers Levy (E-Levy).

As a reminder on what transpired, during the day of the vote on the bill, Joseph Osei-Owusu, who doubles as the Member of Parliament for Bekwai, as well as the First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, had his way when he was able to vote and still sit in the chair of the Speaker. This situation brought into question a lot of legal interpretations especially days earlier, Alban Bagbin had superintended over the House and they had voted to not accept the bill.

In the end, however, when he (Joseph Osei-Owusu, also known as Joe Wise) was in the seat due to the absence of the Speaker, he took a vote and still stayed in the seat of the interim Speaker for that day’s proceedings.

But that was not all.

The New Patriotic Party continued to enjoy a number of such situations, even to the extent that they would take advantage of, for instance, the NDC MPs storming out of Parliament in anger over certain decisions, to have uninhinbited way to determine the trajectories on major bills or government policies before Parliament.

That, and all the political bullying the NPP used to enjoy, seemed to have all come to an end – all in a matter of minutes, on Thursday, October 17, 2024.

Alban Bagbin declares four seats vacant:

During the weekend of October 12-13, 2024, the Member of Parliament for Tamale North, Haruna Iddrisu, hinted at a campaign event that he and his colleagues from the National Democratic Congress in Parliament were going to initiate a process that would make them become the Majority Caucus.

How they were going to do it is what he explained in the following words:

“If you read Article 97 (1) (g) well, it contemplates as we currently have, three Members of Parliament in the New Patriotic Party, and one member from the NDC, and in one instance, you have an elected NPP Member of Parliament now choosing to file to be independent. What does that mean within the ambit of Article 97 (1) (g). (Presumptibly), irrebuttably, it means that, that person has chosen that I no longer belong to the political party that brought me to Parliament and therefore, cannot continue to hold himself as elected Member of Parliament.

“… but the point has been made. Are we supposed to uphold the constitution or to hold it in breach… in any case, the framers of the constitution, why did they put this provision there? That’s why I describe it as a rule against defection… and I want to see how the NPP will respond to this because you cannot have a law which suits you when you want to use it and then you abandon it when it does not suit you.”

And they did move the motion in Parliament.



On Tuesday, October 15, the Minority Leader, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, moved the motion on the floor of Parliament to have the Fomena, Agona West, Suhum, and Amenfi Central seats declared vacant because their MPs had all decided to go independent in the December polls.

For Cynthia Morrison of Agona West and Kwadjo Asante of Suhum, who are both NPP members, they have decided to run independent in the December polls; while Andrew Asiamah, the only independent MP in Parliament has decided to stand on the ticket of the NPP in the elections.

The last seat, in the name of the NDC – Amenfi Central, is also on the list because its MP, Peter Kwakye Ackah, has also decided to enter the 2024 parliamentary election as an independent candidate.

What does Article 97 (1) (g) state?

Article 97 (1) (g) states that: A member of Parliament shall vacate his seat "if he leaves the party of which he was a member at the time of his election to Parliament to join another party or seeks to remain in Parliament as an independent member."

Speaker Bagbin’s response to the motion and his unprecedented ruling:

Having listened to the motion by the Minority Leader, Ato Forson, Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, asked for some time to give a detailed response on the matter. But even ahead of that, he gave a hint on where his direction would be headed in.

“Both the statement and the comments have raised quite serious issues of procedure and substantive law and I think I need time to go through them.

“Because what I believe is that ‘Do unto others as you want others to do unto you’ and ‘When you plant evil you will reap evil’,” he said.

But in two days, Speaker Bagbin returned with his verdict.



The day Bagbin’s ruling gave NDC a short-lived but celebratory Majority in Parliament status:

In the late hours of the afternoon of Thursday, October 17, when it seemed like Parliament was not going to sit, the House convened and after the formalities, Alban Bagbin decided to read out his ruling on the motion brought on to declare some seats vacant.

Basing aspects of his ruling on the precedence set in 2020 under his predecessor, Prof Aaron Mike Oquaye, in the matter of the Andrew Amoako Asiamah of Fomena constituency, Bagbin ruled that while his decision was not premised on this, it was just appropriate, by the spirit of the interpretation of the constitution, that those 4 seats should also be declared vacant.

“Accordingly, I proceed to inform the House that by the notification of the polls the following Members of Parliament have by their actions vacated their seats in Parliament,” he stated.

By that ruling, the tides in the House changed such that the NDC had 136 seats in their name, while the NPP had 135, as against the earlier 138 seats for the NPP and NDC’s 137.

Jubilations followed for the NDC but Alexander Kwamina Afenyo-Markin would have none of the Speaker’s determination, challenging it directly in the House and thereafter declaring that his side of the House would boycott all parliamentary activities until the Supreme Court gave a determination on the matter.

The next 24 hours:

A series of interviews and a press conference from the New Patriotic Party leadership in Parliament would follow in the next hours, where the position of the MPs that they would not accept the ruling of the Speaker of Parliament were re-emphasised.

By the afternoon of Friday, October 18, a 5-member panel of the Supreme Court had been constituted and in no time, the apex court ruled that the decision by Alban Bagbin the previous day should be stayed.

That, in effect, meant that everything until the day before should remain as they were, and in the words of the Supreme Court panel, headed by the Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkornoo, "Parliament has been directed to officially recognise the 4 MPs and allow them to represent their constituents."

The panel also included Justice Mariama Owusu, Justice Kwame Adibu Asiedu, Justice Ernest Yao Gaewu, and Justice Yaw Darko Asare.

Parliament resumes sitting on Tuesday, October 22, but until then, the determination by the Supreme Court appears to stand and that the NPP remains the Majority in Parliament, while the NDC maintains its Minority status. Also, the four seats declared vacant by Alban Bagbin are to return to work as usual.

The tides of the composition of the leadership of Ghana’s 8th Parliament have gone through, perhaps, the most dramatic 48 hours in its entire history, giving some a little feel of power that those who have wielded it since the dawn of January 7, 2021, are not in the least interested in giving away.

Classic moments in the country’s political landscape and as the elections on December 7 draw closer, such a junction in the happenings of things makes the excitement even more anticipatory.