Ghanaian political parties to sign peace pact to ensure peaceful election
Accra, Ghana (PANA) - The National Peace Council (NPC), in collaboration with the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG), has scheduled to meet here Thursday all political party leaders taking part in the 7 December general election to sign a Peace Pact to ensure peace before, during and after the presidential and parliamentary elections.
Leaders of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), as well as eleven other political candidates are scheduled to take part in the elections.
The NPP and the NDC are currently deadlocked over which of the two constitutes the majority and minority parties in the House of Representatives.
This followed a decision of the Speaker of Parliament, Ransford Alan Sumani Bagbin to declare four seats in the house vacant after MPs holding those seats decided to go independent.
This prompted the NDC members of the House to assert themselves as the Majority Caucus and shifted to occupy the seats of the NPP.
The decision affected the ruling NPP which previously held the Majority of seats after the Speaker's ruling and saw their position changing in a hang-parliament.
The NPP and the NDC previously shared the 275 seats equally (137-137) with an independent member declaring for the NPP, causing the NPP to occupy 138 seats against 137 for the NDC.
The Speaker stuck to his decision and dismissed Parliament when the House failed to form a quorum, as the NPP members refused to attend deliberations.
The situation compelled the leader of the NPP members of parliament, Kwamena Affenyo-Markins, to take the matter to the Supreme Court for interpretation which declared the decision of the Speaker as unconstitutional.
This did not sit well with the Speaker and the NDC members of the House.
The Majority then sent a petition to the Speaker of the House, requesting him to reconvene Parliament on 28 and 29 November 2024 to deliberate on urgent national matters but he declined to reconvene the House.
According to the Speaker, the two days sought by the Majority Leader to reconvene to deal with urgent national issues were insufficient to discuss the matters of national interest and held that the political parties and candidates could not be asked to withdraw from their campaigns.
It is in the midst of the apparent deadlock that the NPC and IDEC are meeting the political party leaders Thursday to chart a way forward to ensure peaceful elections on 7 December.
-0-PANA RA 28Nov2024
