The Speaker of Parliament Professor Mike Oquaye has declared the Fomena seat as vacant.
This follows the New Patriotic Party’s petition to Parliament and subsequent engagements by the President and leadership of the party for the incumbent MP, Andrews Asiamah to step down as an independent candidate for the impending December 7 elections.
“With all intents and purposes, he is no longer a member of the party. He has pronounced himself publicly as an independent and has filed his papers to compete against the party in his official candidate as an independent on 7th December 2020,” the Speaker said on Saturday.
This comes on the back of a letter by the leadership of the NPP to expel Andrew Amoako Asiamah, the incumbent MP from the party after he decided to run as an independent candidate in the upcoming general elections.
President Akufo-Addo at a durbar in Fomena on Wednesday also expressed his disappointment in Fomena MP’s refusal to rescind the decision.
Mr Amoako Asiamah had said that he is not leaving the 7th Parliament despite a request to send him packing.
But speaking on the floor, Prof Mike Ocquaye read the ruling in support of the NPP’s request for Mr Asiamah’s seat to be rendered vacant.
“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.
But according to the Speaker, it will be absurd that where any “sitting MP will be campaigning against the party that he/she represents in Parliament and yet ridiculously stands against the party.”
He believes that “no purposeful interpretation of the law will allow such ridicule to prevail.”
The Speaker further explained that the decision had the full backing f the constitution to which the incumbent MP, Mr Asiamah subscribes.
Article 97 (1)(g) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana indicates 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.
