Ghana : House Speaker Elected After Wrangling

The first ordinary session of the Ghanaian 8th Parliament has not been hitch-free. The Wednesday January 7, 2021 session to elect the House Speaker of the National Assembly was marred by clashes between Parliamentarians of the ruling party, New Patriotic Party (NPP) and those of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC). It needed the intervention of heavily armed security officials in the hemicycle for order to be restored. The main bone of contention has been that MPs of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) wanted a completely secretive ballot, while those of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) wanted open ballot and kept displaying their marked ballot papers to the displeasure of the opposition MPs who reacted. At some point, a ruling party MP snatched the ballot papers while voting was still underway, sparking a confrontation.
Immediately the soldiers appeared on the scene, there was fierce resistance from the MPs especially those of the NDC who demanded that the soldiers should be immediately sent out of the house. For about a quarter of an hour, the clash between the MPs and the military continued until the armed forces finally budged and left the house for proceedings to continue. Meanwhile, it is the first time in the history of Ghana’s fourth Republic that security officials have had to storm the house of hono...