The Minority Leader in Parliament has argued that he and his colleagues deserve praise and not condemnation for rejecting the November 7 election date.

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The bill could not get the backing of 184 Members of Parliament.

125 MPs voted for the bill while 97 voted against it.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) had subsequently accused the NPP of being dishonest since they had earlier advocated for the date to be changed to November since 2014.

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But in response, the Minority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu said the Attorney General misled Parliament to get the voting date for general elections changed.

“Some of us felt the principle is good but it is premature to introduce it this year, so we decided to listen to the people, in fact we thought that we could do the law and let it become operational in the 2020 elections…until the Attorney General came and told us that Parliament didn’t have the authority to make a law relating to the constitution and postpone its operational date,” Mr. Mensah-Bonsu said.

“In principle, we in the NPP indeed started this advocacy way back in 2014. Indeed as I said on Thursday that, way back in August last year 2016, when we met the Electoral Commission at the special budget committee, I was the person who pushed that if they were minded to do it, they should do it so that by the close of the year last year, we would have resolved all matters relating to the gazetting and Parliament would have been done with it before the close of the year, so that into the election year, we will not have any albatross hanging on our neck,” the Minority Leader added.