Failure to sign anti-LGBTQ bill cost NPP 2024 elections - Archbishop Agyinasare

Archbishop Charles Agyinasare has asserted that the New Patriotic Party (NPP)'s crushing defeat in the 2024 general elections could be blamed partly on the party's handling of the anti-LGBTQ bill.

The Perez Chapel International founder, in an interview with Bola Ray on Starr Chat, argued that the previous administration's reluctance to assent to the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, which had overwhelming support from Ghanaian Christians and Muslims alike, seemed like a betrayal of the country's moral majority.

"I believe that is why the NPP lost. Because if Ghana is said to be a Christian nation and Christians and even Muslims are saying 'we don't want this,' and then the law is passed and the president is hesitant, or it goes to court and it's dribbled around, I believe that is one of the reasons why they were punished," he said.

On the question of foreign pressure from Western governments and international donors, which has been cited as a reason why Ghanaian leaders have been reluctant to act decisively on the bill, Archbishop Agyinasare pointed that such pressures seemed to have reduced under US President Donald Trump.

"I think one of the countries that would have put a lot of pressure on us would have been the United States of America. And then here comes President Trump, and he says that to him, there are two sexes in the world, male and female," he noted.

The Archbishop argued that Ghana has every right to insist on its own morality, stating that some Eastern European nations have taken similar positions without international consequence.

"Every country has the right to determine what the morals in its country are like. And at times I wonder, when they say there is pressure, why are they not putting the same pressure they put on Ghana or Africa in the Middle East or in other places? It's because they think that we can easily bow under pressure," he said.

He ended with a direct message to Ghana's political leadership.

"To our political leaders, I want to say that they should stand up as men," he stated.

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