ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Ghana’s Supreme Court restored the ruling party’s majority in the parliament on Tuesday ahead of the Dec. 7 election, with an order that the speaker's declaration of four seats as vacant was unconstitutional.
Last month, two members of parliament from the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and one from the biggest opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) announced that they would run as independent candidates in the election, while an independent candidate joined the NPP.
The Speaker of the Parliament Alban Bagbin declared their seats vacant, arguing that the constitution does not allow MPs to defect. The parliament was indefinitely adjourned after the declaration.
Bagbin’s decision had shifted the parliamentary majority to the NDC, giving it one seat more than the outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo’s NPP’s 135.
The Supreme Court's ruling restores the ruling NPPs slim majority of 138 seats, including one independent who leans towards the NPP, against 137 for the opposition NDC.
Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo announced the court’s majority decision of 5:2 in a televised ruling, adding that it will file the reasons behind its decision later.
The presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana will be held concurrently on Dec. 7. It will be the ninth consecutive general election since the country’s return to multi-party democracy in 1992.
Ghana has held peaceful, free and fair elections for nearly two decades but allegations of voter roll irregularities this year have created concerns about a possible democratic backslide.
In September, the NDC held nationwide protests demanding an audit of the voter roll, alleging it detected thousands of unauthorized transfers and erasures of voter names.
President Akufo-Addo is stepping down this year after his second and final four-year term. Former President John Dramani Mahama of the NDC, who lost in the 2016 and 2020 elections, will face off with Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia of the NPP in this year’s election.
Last month, tensions surrounding the elections led the U.S. State Department to issue a warning that it would restrict U.S. visas for people who undermine Ghana’s democracy ahead of the vote.
FILE - Speaker of Ghana Parliament Alban Sumana Bagbin speaks at the Parliament House in Accra, Feb. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street's weak end to last year appears to be carrying into 2025, and U.S. stock indexes are slipping on Thursday.
The S&P 500 was down 0.5% in Thursday afternoon trading and on track to extend the four-day losing streak that dimmed the close of its stellar 2024. The main gauge of Wall Street’s health lost a gain of 0.9% from early in the morning and is heading toward its longest losing streak since April.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 223 points, or 0.5%, as of 2:30 p.m. Eastern time, after an early gain of 360 points disappeared. The Nasdaq composite was 0.6% lower.
Tesla helped drag the market lower after disclosing it delivered fewer vehicles in the last three months of 2024 than analysts expected. The electric-vehicle company’s stock slumped 6.7%.
Tesla was one of the big winners of 2024, particularly after Donald Trump’s Election Day victory raised speculation that Elon Musk’s close relationship with the president-elect could help the company. But critics have been warning that prices across the stock market have run too high, too quickly and are at risk of a pullback.
Consider a measure tracked by Bank of America of how heavily Wall Street analysts are recommending stocks, which recently hit its highest level since early 2022, according to strategist Savita Subramanian. She says the measure has been a reliable contrarian indicator in the past, and it’s only a bit shy of triggering a signal to sell for those who are leery when much of Wall Street herds in the same direction.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, H.B. Fuller sank 7.4% after the seller of adhesives, sealants and other specialty chemical products said it’s recently seen a slowdown in sales to a number of its customer categories.
On the winning side of Wall Street were companies tied to the energy industry after prices rose for crude oil and natural gas.
Constellation Energy jumped 6.2% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500 after announcing it won more than $1 billion in combined contracts with the U.S. General Services Administration to supply power and perform energy savings and conservation measures.
Some Big Tech stocks also helped limit the market's losses. Nvidia, whose chips are powering the world’s move into artificial-intelligence technology, rose 2.1% after following up its nearly 240% surge in 2023 with a better than 170% jump last year.
Some investors and analysts are counting on the AI rush to continue, even though critics say it’s made stock prices too expensive. As the calendar flips to a new year, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives says it’s the ”same tech playbook in year 3 of this tech AI driven bull market,” for example.
Some pages of the playbook do seem to be changing. Investors have ratcheted back expectations for how many cuts to interest rates the Federal Reserve may deliver in 2025, for example.
The economy has held up remarkably well despite the high rates brought by the Fed in recent years to stifle inflation. But inflation has recently appeared to become more resistant to slowing the last bit to the Fed's 2% target, and Trump's pushing for tariffs and other policies have raised worries about potentially more upward pressure on prices.
That pushed the Fed to say recently it will likely deliver fewer of the economy-juicing cuts to interest rates in 2025 than it had earlier thought.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury held at 4.57%, where it was late Tuesday, after a report said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected. It’s the latest signal that the job market remains solid.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell 2.2% in Hong Kong and 2.7% in Shanghai after a survey of factory managers showed Chinese activity expanding at a slower pace in December. New orders, employment and business sentiment weakened.
Upbeat talk by Chinese leader Xi Jinping in a New Year’s address did little to raise optimism among investors who are hoping for more aggressive action to support the world’s second-largest economy and boost stock prices.
“We have adopted a full range of policies to make solid gains in pursuing high-quality development. China’s economy has rebounded and is on an upward trajectory,” Xi said in a New Year message, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Stock indexes were mostly higher in Europe, while Japan's market remained closed.
AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed.
FILE - The New York Stock Exchange is shown in New York's Financial District on Dec. 31, 2024. American flags flew at half-staff there following the death of former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)
FILE - People pass the New York Stock Exchange on Nov. 5, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)
FILE - Currency traders watch monitors at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Dec. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)
FILE - A sign outside the New York Stock Exchange marks the intersection of Wall and Broad Streets, Dec. 12, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
