Alban Bagbin, the Speaker of Parliament
• Alban Bagbin says there should have been an opposition majority in Parliament
• Speaker Bagbin says the General Secretary of the NPP admitted that they had ceded parliament
• He says the party resorted to other means to win back some seats
Alban Bagbin, the Speaker of Parliament has suggested that the governing New Patriotic Party ‘snatched’ parliamentary seats after it realized that it was going to have the minority in the house.
Bagbin told a delegation of Ethiopian Parliament on Wednesday, August 12, 2021 that with their General Secretary, John Boadu admitting that Parliament had gone in favor of the opposition National Democratic Congress, efforts were made by the NPP to regain control of the house.
He said that but for those moves made by the NPP, Ghana would have for the first time had an opposition majority in Parliament.
“They would have had a minority in parliament with a president. Their General Secretary even announced it but the last-minute made some movements and some seats were snatched. That one is a statement of fact,” he stressed.
Bagbin believes that it should be lesson for the country to consider the idea of the two leading political parties working together in the interest of the country.
“…Power-sharing which is called consociation [is] where the president will have a minority. Though it hasn’t happened in Ghana yet, [but] all our colleagues here know that it is possible. And in fact, if not by other interventions, it would have happened in this government,” Bagbin noted.
Alban Bagbin also gave an insight into how his relationship with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
It was expected that Bagbin’s parliament will frustrate the government but by President Akufo-Addo’s own admission, it has been smooth so far.
Bagbin disclosed that he does not always agree with the president on issues of national interest.
“The president calls me for discussion, but we agree to disagree. I go and say this, the president says no, he says this and I also say no. We agree to disagree. We don’t fight over it because the fight is not the solution to the problem,” Bagbin added.
“We just come back to the people and let the people decide. And it is not always that the majority’s right. Many times the majority is catastrophically wrong, he noted.
