ABSTRACT
The Constituent Assembly was formally inaugurated by Lt. General Ankrah on 6 January 1969 at Parliament House. The N.L.C. had originally intended to follow the Constitutional Commission's advice that the Constituent Assembly be chosen at a general election on a nonparty basis:
the result of the Constituent Assembly elections … would indicate where the wind was blowing and whether the objectives of the Coup had been achieved. Moreover, a Constituent Assembly nominated by the N.L.C., or appointed by indirect elections or though the collegiate system, would not be acceptable to a large body of opinion in the country. 1
In the event, the N.L.C. decided against a directly elected body. The ostensible reason was that the initial response of the public to the registration of electors had been poor, and that the return to civilian rule would be unduly delayed by the holding of two elections, one for the Constituent Assembly and the other for the new civilian parliament. A more plausible explanation was that the N.L.C. was still not sure of itself. 2 The politicians were beginning to use the prospect of elections as an argument for lifting the ban on party politics, but far from welcoming the fact that an election would enable them to see where the winds were blowing, the N.L.C. was apprehensive that, if it did not exercise greater control over the process, the wind might blow in the wrong direction. Moreover, if politicians were allowed to contest a public election—even if prevented from forming parties—they might challenge the military regime, including its right to preside over the return to civilian rule. These apprehensions also help to explain why the N.L.C. never gave a clear reply to repeated enquiries by the Constituent Assembly as to whether it was to be allowed to enact or promulgate the Constitution; the Council preferred to hold the issue open as a bargaining point until the very last days of the Assembly in August 1969.