(Bloomberg) -- Ghana’s Supreme Court reinstated the governing party’s majority in parliament, overruling a decision by the house’s speaker to declare four seats vacant.
Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin made the declaration last month after two New Patriotic Party members filed with the elections agency to alter their party status before the Dec. 7 poll, reducing the ruling party’s number of seats to 135 from 137 in 275-seat chamber. The seat of an independent lawmaker who votes with the NPP was also deemed vacant, as was that of a member of the opposition National Democratic Congress.
The NPP’s leader of government business, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, challenged the speaker’s decision by asking the court to provide an interpretation of the constitutional provision on the matter.
“By a majority decision of five against two, the plaintiff is right,” Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo said on Tuesday in the capital, Accra. The court will issue the full details of the ruling later, she said.
The ruling means the balance of power in parliament will revert to what it was before the seats were declared vacant, Afenyo-Markin said in a broadcast on Accra-based Joy News television.
Two NPP members defected to run as independent candidates in the forthcoming election, while the NPP-leaning independent member plans to run as a candidate for the NPP. The member of the NDC defected from his party to run as an independent candidate.
Ghanaians will vote to elect new members of parliament and a president next month. Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia will face off with former president and flagbearer of the NDC John Dramani Mahama as President Nana Akufo-Addo steps down after his second and final four-year term.
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