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The Majority Chief Whip, Frank Annoh-Dompreh, has said his side of the House will never attack women.
He asked the Minority in Parliament not to start any campaign against the New Patriotic Party (NP lawmakers for being against women following the comment by Majority Ledare Alexander Afenyo-Markin on the running mate to former President John Dramanai Mahama.
During proceedings in Parliament on Monday, the Minority caucus expressed unhappiness with the Majority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin’s comment about the choice of septuagenarian Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang as Former President Mahama’s running mate for the 2024 elections.
In the view of Afenyo-Markin, her selection smacked of a lack of succession planning and visionary leadership within the NDC.
The minority caucus asked him to withdraw the comment but he initially refused, leading to disruption in the debate on the President’s state of the Nation address.
The Second Deputy Speaker, Andrew Asiamah Amoako suspended proceedings for a while to allow matters to settle.
When the house resumed sitting, Mr Afenyo-Markin withdrew his statement, saying, “Colleagues expressed a concern about the issue of age. Mr Speaker, the submission was to the effect that our opponents don’t have a clear succession plan for the future [and] not to denigrate their running mate based on age. So I withdraw that aspect of the submission that referred to her age as the basis of my contention.”
Addressing the press in Parliament later, Annoh-Dompreh said “In our standing orders if somebody said something that is impugning a wrong motive you have the right to rise up at where you are and take the person on.
“Our colleagues should learn how to be tolerant, they should up their sense of tolerance. When Ato Forson and co were speaking, assuming without admitting that the Majority Leader had said something that borders on personal attacks on Prof Opoku-Agyemang, that is not how to go about it but we will be kind enough, that is how democratic we are, we always show the way.
“If it is the case that the mention of Prof and her age is their problem we will depart from there but the fact will be told, the story will be told, and the abysmal performance of John Mahama and their administration we will continue to expose that. Let nobody begin any crusade that we went on a viral attack on womanhood, that we will never do.”
