Pronouncements by both President Akufo Addo and John Boadu, the General Secretary of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) have left the future of Andrew Amoako Asiamah the now-famous Member of Parliament for Fomena in the Ashanti Region hanging in a balance.
In two separate instances, John Boadu and President Akufo Addo had stated unequivocally that the NPP will not entertain any member who contests parliamentary elections as an independent candidate.
Mr Asiamah had been at loggerheads with his former party after he defied all pleas and admonitions by the party’s hierarchy against the move to stand as an independent candidate for Fomena. Asiamah had claimed he was forced to take that path because the party’s hierarchy was undermining him.
However, immediately after he won the elections against all odds in Fomena, Asiamah shocked political watchers by announcing that he will align himself to the NPP in Parliament.
“I will join my family NPP in the sense that if you like it or not the nation has to be governed and looking at the divisions we always had in our discourse, if I decide to even go to the other side it means we are going to make things difficult for the Executive branch of government to rule. I do not think it will be in the interest of the country to see that,” he stated.
The NPP has not officially made any statement on this overture by the Fomena MP, particularly when President Akufo Addo and John Boadu had categorically stated that they were not going to entertain any independent parliamentarian in the party’s folds.
“…we will not entertain any independent candidate who would want to realign with us. When you win as an independent candidate [who split from the NPP], don’t align with us,” John Boadu stated a few weeks before the elections.
In quick succession to John Boadu, President Akufo Addo went to Fomena and publicly disowned Asiamah, the sitting NPP MP who had decided to stand as an independent candidate. “…any NPP member who stands as an independent candidate is not a proper NPP member..if you are a proper NPP member, you will not stand as an independent candidate,” Akufo Addo told Fomena chiefs and people.
The run-up to the elections, President Akufo Addo was driven to anger about the insolence of Mr. Ashiamah, after he had refused to oblige the president’s invitation for a one-on-one meeting to sort out the breakdown of the NPP’s front in Fomena.
“Such a disrespectful person cannot work with me,” Akufo Addo said as he promoted another parliamentary candidate against Ashiamah.
However, as it stands in Parliament currently, the NPP may have to eat a humble pie as it ties with the main opposition party, the NDC on the number of seats secured in the legislature (137 seats each). The Fomena MP is the only tie-breaker currently in the august House.