Ghana: One Decade of the Liberal State (Africa in the New Millennium) by

Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Zed Books
Published: 2013-07-04T04:00:00+00:00

On the whole, the 1996 election produced a far more favourable outcome than its much-contested predecessor of 1992; suggesting, rather paradoxically, that even a flawed transition could set the stage for democratic progress.

The renewed mandate

Government Any hopes for the formation of an ‘all-inclusive government’ that were raised as a result of Rawlings’s post-election gestures soon fizzled out. Though a few new faces such as Muhammad Mumuni and Ekwow Spio Grabrah were brought on, Rawlings’s new cabinet still contained holdovers from the PNDC days such as Obed Asamoah, Iddrissu Mahama and Totobi-Quakyi. More significantly, the junior partners in the Progressive Alliance were not represented in the cabinet, much less the opposition groups.

Parliament As illustrated in Table 6.1, the face of parliament, however, had changed. The two vibrant independent candidates lost out, the former NCP lost all of its eight seats and the single EGLE MP did not return. The NDC’s representation had reduced from 189 to 133, sixty-four of whom were new, leaving only sixty-nine from the previous parliament (Badu and Larvie 1997: 44). Added to this were sixty-one from the NPP, five from the PCP and one from the PNC.

Clearly, the ruling NDC had a controlling majority and most of its members were educated professionals, but the minority bloc was studded with relatively more experienced and more vocal politicians. J. H. Mensah (the new minority leader) and C. O. Nyanor on the NPP bench were veterans from the Busia era while Frederick Blay (the second deputy speaker) and Kojo Armah from PCP came from families with a rich history in politics. Nana Akufo Addo, Konadu Apraku, Papa Ankomah, and others, were a new breed of well-educated and vociferous politicians. Their presence was expected to enliven parliamentary debate, improve policy-making at parliamentary committee level and boost governmental accountability and transparency (Gyimah-Boadi 1991: 415; Aubynn 1997: 34).

TABLE 6.1 Party composition of first and second parliaments

Party No. in first parliament No. in second parliament New members

NDC 189 133 64

NCP 8 – –

EGLE 1 – –

Independent 2 – –

NPP – 61 61

PCP – 5 5

PNC – 1 1

Total 200 200 131

Source: Derived from parliamentary election results, 1992 and 1996.

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