Dear Editor,
The spurious attack by Member of the National Assembly, Ms Gail Teixeira, against the media and particularly against the independent and respected Kaieteur News and Stabroek News at the PPP Rally, Kitty Market Square on Sunday, October 9, reminds me of the old saying “people who live in glass houses should not cast stones.”
Article 155(1) of the Constitution of Guyana provides that “No person shall be qualified to be a Member of the National Assembly who (a) is by virtue of his own act, under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power or State.”
Ms Teixeira is a citizen of Canada. To become a citizen, Ms Teixeira, by virtue of her own act, would have sworn allegiance to Canada and to uphold the Constitution of Canada and its laws. She is consequently under acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience or adherence to Canada, a foreign power and State.
She is therefore disqualified from being a Member of the National Assembly.
In Jamaica, which has a similar Constitutional Provision, some Members of the Jamaican Parliament who were also citizens of a foreign power or State lost their seats as a result of rulings by the High Court that they were disqualified from being Members of Parliament.
Yours faithfully,
Valda A. Forsythe
Concerned Guyanese national
Washington D.C.
