NDC will cooperate with government in Parliament if dispute is resolved - Political Scientist

Political Scientist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana’s Department of Political Science, Dr.Isaac Owusu-Mensah says he foresees that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) will cooperate with the Government in parliament only if the presidential results dispute is settled.

In an interview with Samuel Eshun on e.TV Ghana’s Fact Sheet show, he said: “The NDC feels cheated in the presidential elections and they may want to put out that venom on the floor of the house. For now, that is the posture they are giving us. I hope that the election issues with the presidential will be sorted and when the presidential disputes is sorted out I think they will now be ready to cooperate and work with the Government”.

He, however, believes that as it was with the current parliament where both parties had grievances over the number of parliamentary they ought to have won, they still moved on with parliamentary work and it is highly possible that they will quickly move on with their work.

“Even in the current government whereby we have the NPP having the 169 seats and then the NDC having 106 seats, there were some seats that NPP considered that they won in the 2016 and there were some seats that the NDC considered that they won in 2016. Given these numbers they still said to themselves, ‘let’s move on’.

When they come to parliament and start working together, they will forget about the election. They have a country to develop. They have Ghana to rule; both the majority and the minority and therefore consequently they have no option than to work together and move on”, he added.

Out of the 275 seats in Parliament, the Electoral Commission announced that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has 137 seats with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) having 136 seats and an independent candidate occupying one seat. The Sene West Constituency seat result is still outstanding.

Meanwhile, the NDC has hinted of taking legal action to contest the presidential election results as they believe they won the 2020 presidential election.