Speaker prays NDC is wiped out of parliament in 2020 polls
Speaker of Parliament, Prof. Mike Oquaye has expressed hopes that the next Parliament in 2021 won’t have any NDC MPs.
He said this prayer backing President Akufo-Addo’s expectation that NPP lawmakers would fill seats left by the NDC MPs, who boycotted his State of the Nation Address.
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“We pray that the good Lord will grant all his wishes, including that latest one he made of full occupation of this honourable house,” the Speaker said, flashing a smile in a one-side chamber.
The NPP has 169 seats, which are 63 more than the NDC won in 2016. The NDC’s share of the chamber is 106 seats. The NPP’s number of seats is the largest margin the NPP ever had over the NDC in the 4th Republic.
Photo: 2004 parliamentary results gave the NPP the next biggest number of seats
Photo: 2004 parliamentary results gave the NPP the next biggest number of seatsWith the November 2020 general elections up for grabs, it remains to be seen if the NPP will hold on to its majority.
Officially, the governing NPP has set a 2020 parliamentary objective of winning 200 seats.
At the 2019 National Delegates Conference of the party in December 2019, the NPP General Secretary said;
“We want to see that unity amongst all of us to ensure that we increase our parliamentary seats not only from 169 but we will be able to hit 200 seats in 2020.”
The NPP has also sensationally targeted five seats in Volta Region, its weakest link in every election since 1992.
The NPP has only one out of 26 seats in the region which is the “World Bank” of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).
The Regional Chairman of the party, Makafui Woanyah in December 2019 unveiled what the party termed “Agenda 5-35”
“If we work very hard in the earmarked constituencies and support [the strategy] with the right logistics, I believe we can win these seats in December”, he said on February 3, 2020, during the Ho Central NPP Mega Youth Summit.
The Women’s wing of the ruling New Patriotic Party [NPP] in the Central Region has vowed to win all 23 seats for the party in the region.
It has branded this ‘Agenda 23 Seats In Central Region’.
In the Greater Accra region, the NPP has declared “Agenda 24 seats campaign” to secure 80% seats in the region.
The Greater Accra Regional Parliamentary statistics indicates that the NPP won 21 out of the 34 Parliamentary seats.