Dr. Rashid Pelpuo, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Wa Central, believes it will be difficult to exclude political parties from the election of caucus leaders in Parliament.
His comments follow Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu’s resignation as Parliament’s Majority Leader.
Dr. Pelpuo, a former Deputy Majority Leader, told Selorm Adonoo on Citi FM/Citi TV’s The Big Issue that, despite references to Parliament’s new standing orders on the elimination of political party involvement in the selection of caucus leaders, it will be extremely difficult to completely eliminate party influences on who becomes a caucus leader.
According to Dr. Rashid Pelpuo, “the party’s declaration has always determined the leader of the House caucuses since 1992.” The leader of the House caucus will be chosen by the party at a meeting, and the caucus will follow. It is something bigger than the caucus, so frequently, the party chooses the leader, who is then supported by the caucus members, even though by our standing orders, the caucus members should meet to decide who leads.
He stressed that because members of parliament are frequently directed by the political party’s overarching authority, which directs their operations both inside and outside of Parliament, the frequently mentioned new standing orders provision is insufficient to completely eradicate political parties from selecting leaders.
“In the instance of the NDC, people complained because they thought that there was no discussion, they were taken by surprise, they didn’t say they didn’t want their leader, and nobody understood why it happened until later on. In the same particular instance, the same thing has occurred: the biggest caucus in the NPP is the Ashanti caucus and they say they were not consulted and other MPs joined them and made the same pronouncements and then they made reference to the new standing orders that it requires that the members elect their own leader but it is not clear because it does show that the leader emerges from the caucus and so that pronouncement is not strong enough for us to say the party does not matter. The party matters because it is the overarching authority that guides operations in and out of Parliament.”
