GHANA President Nana Akufo-Addo called for unity at his swearing-in ceremony on Thursday after an acrimonious election that culminated in a fight on the floor of parliament.<\/p>\n
Soldiers entered Ghana’s parliament overnight to break up a scuffle between rival lawmakers at odds over the Dec. 7 election that marred the major cocoa and gold producer’s reputation for peaceful polls.<\/p>\n
“I pledge before this august House and the good people of Ghana that all I do will be for the common good,” Akufo-Addo said at the ceremony attended by heads of state from across West and Central Africa.<\/p>\n
He promised to boost growth in one of the region’s largest economies, bring electricity to all, build more roads and achieve universal free healthcare.<\/p>\n
Akufo-Addo was declared the winner of last month’s election with 51.59%, ahead of former President John Mahama. His victory followed a vote tarnished by violence in which five people were killed, a rarity for a country that has a reputation as one of West Africa’s most stable democracies.<\/p>\n
Mahama’s party has said it will contest the results in court, alleging fraud though it has not published evidence.<\/p>\n
The fight in parliament started when one MP from the president’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) snatched some paper ballots during an overnight vote to determine the house speaker, according to a source who was present.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear why the lawmaker was angry. Last month’s elections left a hung parliament, without a dominant party to push through the appointment of speaker and other key posts.<\/p>\n
Footage on local television showed politicians, many of them unmasked, pushing and shoving before about 20 soldiers entered the chamber. Ranks of MPs then faced each other and chanted over a dividing line of masked soldiers and police.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Alban Bagbin, the candidate from Ghana’s other main party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), was voted in as speaker.<\/p>\n
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GHANA President Nana Akufo-Addo called for unity at his swearing-in ceremony on Thursday after an acrimonious election that culminated in a fight on the floor of parliament. Soldiers entered Ghana’s parliament overnight to break up a scuffle between rival lawmakers at odds over the Dec. 7 election that marred the major cocoa and gold producer’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":8302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,8,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-policy"],"yoast_head":"\n