Speaker declares Fomena seat vacant

The Speaker of Parliament, Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye, has declared the Fomena seat in the Adansi North District of the Ashanti Region vacant, following a decision by the incumbent MP to contest for re-election as an independent candidate.

Amoako Andrew Asiamah, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP for Fomena, is no longer running on the ticket of the governing party, and according to the rules of Parliament and the constitution of Ghana, the seat must be declared vacant, the Speaker said.

Article 97 (1)(g) of the 1992 constitution of Ghana 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.

“[To] all intents and purposes, he is no longer a member of the party,” Professir Oquaye said in a ruling delivered on Saturday (7 November). “He has pronounced himself publicly as an independent and has filed his papers to compete against the party in his official [capacity] as an independent on 7 December 2020.

“Having forfeited the membership of the party on whose ticket he was elected to Parliament, the operative language of the constitution is that, he shall – which is mandatory – vacate his seat in Parliament.”

The Speaker’s ruling follows a letter from the governing NPP to his office, informing him of the MP’s decision to renounce his party membership.

Asiamah withdrew from the NPP to register his reservations in relation to what he termed “machinations to get him out” during the party’s primaries. He lost the primaries in June 2020 and has subsequently filed to run as an independent candidate in the 7 December polls.

“Reject independents”

President Akufo-Addo has said parliamentary candidates who break away from the NPP to run as independents  cannot help his government achieve its goals.

A number of past NPP parliamentary aspirants, aggrieved at having lost their primaries, have resorted to standing independently despite many attempts by the party hierarchy to persuade them to reconsider. Some, like Asiamah, are incumbent MPs.

“Anybody who is contesting as an independent candidate cannot be a diehard member of the NPP. If you’re NPP you can’t contest independently,” the president said during his campaign in the Ashanti Region a few weeks ago.

“Especially when you refuse to honour my invitation over the issue, then it means you don’t regard me [Akufo-Addo], and I can’t work with someone who doesn’t respect me,” Akufo-Addo said.

At least ten disgruntled MPs from the governing party have announced that they will be running as independent candidates in the December elections.

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