A National Democratic Congress (NDC) stalwart,Dr Benjamin Kunbuor, has called on the national executive of the party to rescind their decision to reconstitute the Minority Leadership in Parliament, which is headed by Haruna Iddrisu, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale South in the Northern Region.
According to him, “the dynamics in Parliament are completely different because there is a parliamentary system and body language that takes place and it is only understood by those who have had an opportunity to become parliamentarians.
“If you were to attempt changing the parliamentary leadership now, you are going to now build a formidable internal opposition in parliament. As a result of that, the current minority leadership will become, not ordinary backbenchers but former leaders of the side and it can be devastating for your political party,” Dr Kunbuor explained.
Dr Kunbuor stressed that “there has been reconstitution of NDC’s parliamentary leadership before but it is mostly done through negotiations and dialogue, where people agree to step aside, not an imposition and if you don’t negotiate issues properly, people will be dissatisfied about it”.
He insisted that “the extended leadership, four front bench, is as strong as their ranking members behind them and the backbenchers.When getting the type of failure and looked at only at the level of front bench, youcould be making a mistake.”
Dr Kunbuor noted that it had linkage with immediate extended leadership and had some linkage with backbenchers.
The NDC leadership has come under party members’ criticism for approving some appointees of the Akufo-Addo-led administration, despite having equal numbers of MPs in thehung parliament.
Asiedu Nketia, General Secretary of the NDC, in response to criticism on the issue, hinted that the party would be reconstituting leadership of the Minority in Parliament and maintained that “when you have a situation where some people think these people are not permanent, they themselves do not have the confidence to act in the way they should be acting and then other aspirants who want to occupy their positions will act in a way that will upstage or undermine them.”–ghanaweb.com
