Fomena MP Sides With NPP In 8th Parliament

Andrew Amoako Asiamah, Fomena MP says he will side with the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 8th Parliament after winning his seat as an independent candidate.

“I said that I was winning for the party. I don’t have any place to go. My blood, my DNA, my everything is NPP,” he told the press in Parliament today, Wednesday, December 16, 2020.

With uncertainty over whether the NPP would retain a majority in Parliament, many wondered if Mr. Asiamah would side with his old party.

According to the MP, although he won the 2020 polls as an independent candidate, his constituents have urged him to associate with the NPP.

Mr. Asiamah thus affirmed that his commitment to the NPP was never in doubt.

I am taking this decision with the prior recognition of my constituents. I am not speaking just for myself. I am speaking for my people. What they told me is what I am speaking out. My people are saying despite whatever happened, I should still be with NPP.”

Mr. Asiamah did not contest the NPP primary ahead of the 2020 polls and the NPP was instead represented by Philip Ofori-Asante.

Mr. Asiamah defied the party to contest as an independent candidate in an ultimately successful bid to enter Parliament.

The Speaker of Parliament subsequently removed the MP from Parliament after the NPP wrote to him demanding the invocation of its constitutional provision that makes a parliamentary seat vacant after a member of Parliament leaves the party that sponsored one’s candidature.

Commenting on this, the Fomena MP said, “frankly I was not happy with the decision of the Speaker. I had not come across any precedence. But it is all good.”

He further said he had “no demands from the government.”

“But I believe that the party will do what is right and needful for my people. What I am looking for is to make sure that everything the party does is open and transparent,” he added.

At the end of the December 7 polls, Mr. Asiamah obtained 12,805 of the total votes cast beating his contenders; Philip Ofori Asante and Christiana Appia Agyei of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) who polled 10,798 and 2,608 votes respectively.

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