Although the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) has lost hold of majority seats in Parliament owing to its massive defeat in the December 7 polls, it will still have the opportunity to produce one deputy speaker for the House. This is according to the Acting Head of Public Affairs of Parliament, Kate Addo.
The NDC has a little over one hundred MPs in Parliament out of the 275. There are that the NPP will dominate the house leadership due to the huge numbers it has in the house, but Kate Addo, in an address to journalists on Monday said the parliamentary rules won’t allow the majority side to drown the minority.
She said “the two deputies cannot come from the same political parties. So we will have two deputies from two different political parties.”
In relation to the position of the Speaker of Parliament, she explained that there would be voting in the House should several persons be nominated for the role.
“On the date of the voting, when the nominations are read, this consent letter is brought out to show that the person who has been nominated has actually agreed to be part of the process that will elect the speaker.
If there is just one nomination by the house, then obviously there is not much contention but in the eventuality that you have more than one person, then we would have to go through the ballot process. What will happen is that a ballot will be cast and whoever emerges with a simple majority will then be deemed as having been elected as the speaker to the Parliament,” she added.
New MPs register in Parliament
Meanwhile, scores of newly elected Members of Parliament across the country have showed up at Parliament to be registered for the next house.
One of them is Accra mayor, Alfred Vanderpuije who represents the Ablekuma South Constituency.
“Coming to Parliament I will bring a worth of experience as Chief Executive for the Accra Metropolitan Assembly for eight years dealing with issue of sanitation, revenue mobilization, urban development, health among others.
There are various committees in the Parliament that I know that my worth of experience can be brought to bear on the work of the House.”