Alban Bagbin
The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, says an opposition leader does not need to fight the one in power to portray his party as a credible alternative government.
According to him, some people have the mindset that the noble art of opposition is to fight the ruling government for electoral advantage, saying an opposing leader does not “oppose for opposition’s sake.”
Mr. Bagbin made the statement during an interaction with a delegation from Ethiopia’s Political Parties Joint Council (EPPJC) in Parliament last Wednesday.
The delegation, which was led by Dr. Rahel Bafe, was made up of leaders of political parties and some members of the Ethiopian Parliament.
“Opposition is not about fighting the one in power because as for change nothing can stop it. It is one of the things that nothing can stop. It will happen when it will happen,” Mr. Bagbin said.
The Speaker continued that while he was the Minority Leader, a Nigerian parliamentarian questioned him whether he was truly the opposing leader in Ghana’s Parliament at the time because of his collaboration with then Majority Leader and the Speaker when they attended the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meeting in Nigeria.
“I was moving with the then Speaker and the Majority Leader. We were always together – sitting, talking and eating together – and one of the Nigerian MPs stopped me and said, ‘they say you are the opposing leader in Ghana and I said yes. Are you sure you are the opposing leader?’ And I said ‘yes, I am the opposing leader’,” he narrated, adding “And he asked how can you be sleeping on the same bed with them and you said you are an opposing leader? And I said do you want to see me fighting them? That is not opposition.”
“The Nigerian MP told me it can never happen in Nigeria. Are you from Rawlings’ party and I said yes. So you people sat there and allowed the opposition party to take power from you? And I said we were not even sitting; we were standing and they took it from us. It can never happen in Nigeria, but it eventually happened,” he stated.
Power Alteration
According to the Speaker, there has been power alteration in Ghana since the promulgation of the 1992 Constitution, indicating that “every eight years there is usually a change.”
“Our colleagues, like us – yes we did it before, are saying today that as for the next election they will win it. Yes, they say they will break it.
“In 2016, my party the NDC said the same thing. As for that one for sure they were breaking it. We didn’t break it. They are saying now they will. We’re hearing them; we shall see whether they can do that,” he asserted.
He assured Ghanaians that it would not be for his intervention for power to change hands, noting “because as I sit I will do everything, when I am performing my functions as the Speaker, to be impartial.”
“It is not when I am performing my functions as a member of my party. That is different. That one I cannot be impartial. I have to perform my party function,” he, however, indicated.
“But as a Speaker, I will do everything to be impartial on the floor of the House. I won’t satisfy the NDC and I will not satisfy the NPP. They will both be against me.
“I have to satisfy the good people of Ghana and advance the course of democracy. It is national interest that should prevail,” he stressed.
He told his guests that Ghana had moved away from the mantra “the Minority should have their say and the Majority their way” to “the Majority and Minority should have their say but the national interest must have its way.”
“We are not just talking about good governance or multiparty democracy. No! We are moving towards inclusive, participatory democracy, which is more of smart governance; not good governance as defined by the commonwealth conference in Zimbabwe,” he added.
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House