Legislators were voting to choose the next parliament speaker. Chaos erupted after a lawmaker from the ruling party tried to seize the ballot box.
The ensuing clash lasted several hours until the army moved in, with national television broadcasting the drama live.
“Looking at a member of parliament and a minister of state snatching ballot papers… was so shameful.”
After calm was restored, an opposition MP and a veteran politician Alban Bagbin was elected speaker of the 4th Republic.
As one of the oldest serving legislators, the MP for the Nadowli Kaloe constituency of the Upper West region, polled 138 votes against the ruling New Patriotic Party’s choice and his predecessor Aaron Mike Ocquaye’s 136 with one MP failing to vote.
Bagbin makes history for being the first Speaker of Parliament who is not selected by the governing party.
More than a dozen opposition MPs were charged with unlawful gathering on Monday after protesting the election results.
But in the topmost of the fracas emanated in the house of the Legislature, some Ghanaians were shocked to see the MP for Tema West, Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah snatch ballot papers from the hands of Parliamentary official on Thursday morning.
In an attempt to disrupt the election process for the new Speaker, Mr Ahenkora, with lightning-fast speed, snatched some of the ballot papers on the blindside of the Parliamentary officials as the ballot was being counted.
His dash across the floor of Parliament towards the nearest exit was, however, met with stiff resistance from his colleagues with the help of some security officials.
The ballot papers were retrieved, but only after he had suffered a few jabs from his colleagues.
As usual, social media reactions have taken the incident in Parliament on another tangent, creating memes of the legislator.
Below are some of their reactions:
The way Muntaka Mubarak was vigilant,don’t try oo. Just look at the Tema West MP Carlos Ahenkorah being treated like a criminal pic.twitter.com/rLYXFWTTLP
— Zoe Abu-Baidoo (@ZABaidoo) January 7, 2021
