Folks our beloved country, Ghana is 60 years old, hurray!!! And it would be making time to join the pension train at 65, if she were a government worker, with little or nothing to show. But never mind being a nation, 60 years is just like a child at the crawling stage if one compares it to other countries which are 200 years or above. Slowly but surely, we will get to our destination.
Today, as we celebrate our year long anniversary, we cannot say it is complete if we put a blind eye on one of the three arms of the state which activities have contributed immensely to the growth of our democracy.
This arm of government is the Legislature. The legislative arm of the state, (Parliament of Ghana), has gone through a number of transformational changes which started as far back as 1837.
Remarkable of these are the ever increasing numbers of seats, mode of operations as well as sitting arrangements.
Ghana has already bagged in four Republican Constitutional democracies with the Fourth Republican Constitution being the stable one after the post-independence.
My dear readers join me in unionism as I walk you through from Genesis to Revelation of the evolution of the legislative arm of Ghana. Gold Coast now Ghana experienced its first legislative rule during the reign of Queen Victoria which lasted from 1837 to 1901.
Between 1850 and 1865, the Gold Coast, on becoming a district dependency of the British Empire, was given its own legislative Council to advise the colonial Governor in enacting laws mainly in the form of Ordinance. That Council consisted of the Governor and two people who were designated by Royal instructions to serve as advisors even though the Governor by himself exercised both legislative and executive powers.
In 1866 to 1874, Ghana the then Gold Coast was reintegrated into the West African Settlement. At this point the legislature began a steady growth from 1874, when the Gold Coast was again given a separate government, although the powers of the legislature were still limited. However, in 1888, the first African unofficial member was nominated to serve on the legislative Council.
In 1916, things began to take shape as the legislative Council was reconstituted to have nine (9) nominated unofficial members with six out of the nine being Africans, as opposed to eleven official members and the Governor. The unofficial members were later increased from nine to eleven which nine of them were Africans, representing the traditional authorities, and the three cites of Accra, Cape Coast and Sekondi-Takoradi.
Meanwhile, the first legislative council elections took place under the 1925 Guggisberg Constitution. Even under this arrangement, the Governor still maintained absolute control over legislation. But in the year 1946 when Burns Constitution replaced that of Guggisberg, elected representatives formed the Majority of the council. Due to this new arrangement, the Governor ceased to be the ex-officio president of the council in 1949, while an unofficial member was appointed president.
This trend continued until 1951, when the legislature elected Sir Emmanuel Charles Quist as the first Speaker under the 1950 Constitution. Under the same constitution, the first elections to the legislative assembly involving political parties took place and 75 members were elected plus nine appointed members, three of who were ex-officio and six representing commercial and mining interest.
The Convention Peoples Party (CPP) won majority of the seats and thus Dr Kwame Nkrumah became the leader of government business. Nkrumah’s party again won majority of seats in the 1954 and 1956 elections.
On the 6th of March, 1957, Ghana freed itself and attained full political independence which ushered in the 1957 Constitution which was fashioned after the Westminster model – Prime Minister as head of government with the Queen of England as head of state. Under the Transitional Provisions of the State, the Members and the Speaker of the National Assembly of 1956 were deemed duly elected.
The independence Parliament comprised: The Queen and six political parties which consisted the national assembly. The parties were CPP with 66 seats, followed by the Northern People’s Party (NPP) which grabbed 14 of the seats, the National Liberation Movement (NLM) managed to pull 13, the Togoland Congress Party (TCP) had single two while Federation of Youth Organisation (FYO), Moslem Association Party (MAP) and independent candidate had one each.
Why there were 10 female MPs
After that election, a special law enacted to create 10 extra seats specifically for the first female Parliamentarians. So, you see, the problem of getting more women in the August did not start with us and will surely not end with us.
On 1st July, 1960, Ghana became a Republic under the first Republican Constitution. The National Assembly, formed under the independence Constitution of the 1957, became the first National Assembly of the first Republic with a five-year term. The CPP and the United Party (UP) made the composition of the house.
The CPP had 100 seats while UP managed only 12 seats bringing the total number of seats to 112 with an additional 10 seats for female MPs.
In February, 1964, the Republican Constitution was amended, making the CPP the only national party. The previous National Assembly was dissolved in 1965. In ensuing peaceful elections, all the 198 candidates fielded by the CPP were returned unopposed. This has been described by many as the era of one party state.
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