Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the majority leader in parliament, voiced his worries about the condition of the nation’s democracy in light of the departure of seasoned lawmakers from the legislative house.
In a Thursday, February 1 interview with GTV, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu emphasized the need for political parties to take this worrying trend seriously.
The Minister for Parliamentary Affairs cautioned that failure to act could jeopardize the development of Ghana’s democracy and urged the two main political parties, the NPP and NDC.
“I am worried about the NPP, and I am worried about the Parliament of Ghana, and I am worried about our democracy. The longer a person stays in Parliament, the better their performance will be. It is for him, it is for his party, it is for Parliament, and it is for our democracy.”
“Which is why what is happening certainly cannot be good. And I think that the parties, especially the NPP and NDC, need to do some serious introspection about what is going on—this constant peeling of MPs,” he said.
Remarkably, several experienced lawmakers from the National Democratic Party (NDP) and the New Progressive Party (NPP) have either announced that they will not run for office again or have lost in their respective parliamentary primaries.
28 Members of Parliament were unable to win reelection in the most recent NPP primary. Before this, Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu and eight other NPP lawmakers made the decision not to run for office. Furthermore, in May 2023, sixteen sitting legislators from the NDC side lost their races for parliament.
