GhanaWeb Feature by Ishmael Batoma:
The Ablekuma North Constituency, the only constituency out of the 276 constituencies which had not, until now, had representation in the 9th Parliament of Ghana, gone one after the rerun of the 2024 parliamentary election at 19 of the polling stations of the constituency on Friday, July 11, 2025.
The stakes were rightly very high before the rerun because of the history of elections in the constituency since the inception of the 4th Republic of Ghana and the implications of its outcome on Ghana’s Parliament and, in effect, the making and unmaking of the country’s laws.
The victory of Ewurabena Aubynn, who was the candidate of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), was historic and has certainly brought some implications to bear.
This GhanaWeb article takes a look at the history that was made in the Ablekuma North constituency on Friday, about seven months from the main 2024 Election, and its ramifications on Ghana’s political landscape.
The record that was broken:
Although this would not be the first time the NDC has won Ablekuma North, Ewurabena Aubynn’s victory is historic. This is because this will be the first time the NDC has beaten the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the constituency’s parliamentary election in which the two parties contested in.
The NDC won Ablekuma North in 1992 after the NPP boycotted the parliamentary election, having lost the presidential election, which was held about a month earlier in November 1992. The 1992 and 2024 parliamentary elections are the only two elections the NDC had won in the constituency, with the remaining seven won by the NPP.
The 1992 Election was won by NDC’s Adam Baako Nortey Yeboah, who represented the constituency for only one term. After him came seven terms of NPP MPs, from Kwamena Bartels to his daughter, Sheila Penelope Bartels.
‘Super Majority’ in Parliament:
One of the things that was being thrown around in the run-up to the rerun was the NDC becoming the only political party to have a ‘super majority’, with a two-thirds majority (more than 66.7% of the seats in the House), making it the first time a political party has attained this feat in the history of the 4th Republic.
The NDC had a ‘super majority’ or ‘absolute majority’ in the 1st Parliament of the 4th Republic, understandably because the NPP did not contest the 1992 parliamentary election. The data shows that the NDC had 94.5% (189 of the 200) of the seats in the 1st Parliament.
So, technically, a political party — the NDC — has had a ‘super majority’ in Ghana’s Parliament before, but this was when its main challenger, the NPP, boycotted the parliamentary elections.
Has any of the two political parties, which have formed between 95% to 100% of all the 9 parliaments in the 4th Republic, enjoyed a super majority when both of them contested in the parliamentary elections before?
The data shows that none of the two leading political parties has had two-thirds of the seats or more in parliamentary elections that they both contested, aside from the 9th Parliament.
The NDC’s victory in the 2024 Ablekuma North parliamentary elections has given it a ‘super majority’ in an election that the two leading parties contested.
With the win, the NDC now has 184 of the 276 seats in the House, which represents two-thirds (approximately 66.7%) of the total number of seats.
The closest any party came to having a ‘super majority’ before the 9th Parliament was in the 2nd Parliament, where the NDC was just one seat away from getting a two-thirds majority, mastering 133 seats (66.5%) of the total 200.
The remaining parliaments saw the two leading parties keenly contesting for seats in the House, with neither of them getting more than 56% of the seats in the House.
The 8th Parliament even saw both the NDC and the NPP getting 137 seats each out of the 275 in the House.
Significance of NDC’s ‘super majority’ status:
What exactly can the NDC do with a ‘super majority’ or an ‘absolute majority’ in Parliament, and why is it so important?
Aside from its legislative duties that were pointed out earlier, Ghana’s 1992 Constitution grants Parliament control over all public funds (referred to as the “power of the public purse”). Article 174 of the constitution states that “no tax can be imposed without the authority of Parliament.”
The most important thing in the performance of these duties is the number. Before the House sits on a matter or makes a decision, a certain number of MPs are required to be present.
Article 102 of the 1992 Constitution states: “A quorum of Parliament, apart from the person presiding, shall be one-third of all the Members of Parliament.”
With the total number of MPs of the 9th Parliament being 276, the quorum needed for the House to commence a sitting is the presence of 92 MPs.
Article 104(1) also specifies that decisions in Parliament require the support of a majority of members present, with at least half of all MPs in attendance — 138 MPs.
Also, to approve constitutional amendment(s), two-thirds of the MPs (184 MPs) must vote in favour of the amendment(s).
With the NDC’s 184 MPs, the party will not need the support of the 88 NPP MPs or the 4 independent Members of Parliament (MPs) to either form a quorum for business before the House, make decisions (pass ordinary bills), or amend the constitution.
Some of the other things the NDC can do with its 184 absolute majority include:
Impeach the President of the Republic.
Amend non-entrenched provisions of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.
Approve or extend a state of emergency.
Override a presidential veto on bills passed by Parliament.
What the absolute Majority cannot do:
Despite the enormous power the NDC has now in Parliament, it cannot amend entrenched provisions of the 1992 Constitution, including the amendment of the presidential term for the current President, John Dramani Mahama, to go for a third term, which has been a subject of public discussion recently.
Unlike other unentrenched provisions of the constitution, which can be easily amended by a parliamentary majority, amending entrenched provisions is very rigorous.
First, the NDC, with its two-thirds majority, can vote to amend an entrenched provision of the constitution, but for their action to become law, it must have the support of Ghanaians.
For an entrenched provision to be amended, it must gain at least 75% support in a referendum in which more than 40% of registered voters take part.
Other records:
Aside from the NDC’s unprecedented ‘absolute majority’, another record set in the 2024 parliamentary election was the number of seats lost by a political party in an election.
The NDC lost 56 seats in the 1996 parliamentary election when the NPP contested in the election, having boycotted the 1992 parliamentary election.
Aside from the 1996 Election, the greatest seat loss was seen in the 2024 parliamentary election, which saw the NPP lose 49 of its seats.
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