The leadership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have chosen Joseph Osei Owusu , MP-elect for Bekwai Constituency and MP-elect for Fomena Constituency, Andrews Amoako Asiamah to serve as First and Second Deputy Speakers of Parliament respectively.
It follows after hours of a closed-door meeting ensuing the election of Alban Bagbin as the Speaker of the 8th Parliament.
The Speaker of Parliament race saw Mr. Bagbin winning the election by two votes against former Speaker, Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye.
The results of that election remains a shock to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) which had wanted to merge its grip on power by obtaining majority figure in Parliament and securing their proposed Speaker of Parliament nominee, Prof. Oquaye maintained.
After that avidly contested election that was characterized by several controversial events that lasted several hours, many feared that there may be calls for separate elections to be conducted for the first and second Deputy Speakers instead of them being hand-picked as has been done in the past.
Howbeit, a crux meeting with the leadership of the NDC and NPP in Parliament as well as General Secretaries of both NDC and the NPP infer that the Bekwai MP, Joseph Osei Owusu and Fomena MP, Andrews Amoako Asiamah be designated as first and second Deputy Speakers.
The NPP nominated one of its members, Joseph Osei Owusu while the NDC chose Andrews Amoako Asiamah who is an independent candidate.
Joseph Osei Owusu who is also known as Joe-wise was the First Deputy Speaker in the 7th Parliament.