RFI
Ghana: army intervenes in Parliament in full session in Accra
The army intervened, on the night of Wednesday January 6 to Thursday January 7, in the precincts of Parliament to restore calm between the deputies of the party in power and of the opposition. Tensions rose when the president of the chamber was elected. Observers are already drawing a parallel with the situation in the United States. Ghanaians witnessed scenes of chaos in the House of Parliament that night. They saw their MPs fight with each other as they gathered to elect their new president. But unable to agree on how to achieve this, the majority party, the NPP, wanted the vote to be transparent while the opposition, the NDC, insisted on a secret ballot. In the deadlock, a deputy from the ruling party tried to seize the ballot box containing ballots during the election of the president of the chamber. And it was finally a member of the opposition, of the National Democratic Congress, who was elected.Some already denounce a shame for Ghanaian democracy, because the army had never had to intervene in the chamber of Parliament to restore the ‘order. “The army has no place here,” chanted opposition MPs who see in this intervention an attempt by the government to cling to power. These events coincide with the inauguration, this Thursday, of the president Nana Akufo-Addo, for a second term, after her victory in the elections of December 7, 2020. A victory still contested by the opposition which does not accept its defeat and this makes the management of Parliament complicated. a highly divided Parliament, each camp has 137 elected deputies. Which gave rise to great tension. There were bewildering scenes, like that of a deputy from the power camp filmed sitting on the knees of her opposition counterpart, because the latter was sitting on her side, on the side of the Unprecedented events that recall the situation in the United States where Donald Trump refuses to acknowledge his defeat like the NDC in Ghana. But this is where the parallels end. Ghanaians no longer want to follow Washington’s example. Everyone is observing today the reaction of the expected American delegation during the inauguration of Nana Akufo-Addo to see if it will call for respect for democracy, while the American president is having such a hard time doing so.
–
