The Alliance for Change (AFC) has formally written the Leader of the main opposition coalition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) David Granger requesting support in a call to have the Speaker of the House Raphael Trotman set a date for a sitting of the National Assembly in order to proceed with its no confidence motion against the government.
Under Standing Order 8 (2), the Speaker has the authority to call for a sitting of the National Assembly if he is of the opinion that public interest requires it to meet.
Standing Order 8 (2) states: “If, during an adjournment of the Assembly, it is represented to the Speaker by the Government, or the Speaker is of the opinion, that the public interest requires that the Assembly should meet on a day earlier than that to which it stands adjourned, the Speaker may give notice accordingly and the Assembly shall meet at the time stated in such notice.”
What is not made clear in the Standing Orders was whether or not Trotman could call for a sitting in the absence of government formally setting a date. Trotman had previously told Stabroek News that he would consider calling an emergency sitting of the National Assembly should the majority of the house make a formal request. He was speaking then ahead of the parliamentary recess.
Clerk of the National Assembly Sherlock Isaacs told Stabroek News on Wednesday that it was not possible in his view for the Speaker to set a date and that the Speaker only had the authority to adjust a date should the public interest arise.
He said that as far as he was concerned, there was nothing within the Standing Orders that would allow the opposition to potentially call a sitting of the National Assembly. He noted that the Standing Order 8 (2) had a “catch” that ensured the Speaker would only have the authority to call an earlier sitting once the government had set a date.
At a press briefing yesterday, the AFC’s General Secretary David Patterson stated that the party had written to Granger on Tuesday requesting support to jointly request of the Speaker to set a date. Together, the two groups have a one-seat majority in the House.
Patterson clarified that APNU has provided reasons whereby the party would not be pushing immediately to have the sitting, including that this was the first week since the recess ended and that next Thursday—the Assembly usually sits on Thursdays—was a national holiday. Patterson stated that it was his belief, however, that after the 23rd APNU would be pushing as strenuously as the AFC for a sitting.
Meanwhile, AFC Vice-Chairman Moses Nagamootoo stated that the government had its own agenda and that it was his belief that it would hold off the next sitting of Parliament until the end of November. He said that the explanations given during the Parliament Management Committee on Wednesday as to why the government would be holding off on setting a date did not “excite.”
Nagamootoo said that he was of the belief that the government would most likely set a date for elections before risking setting a date for the parliamentary sitting and risk having the no-confidence motion put to a vote. He noted that at this stage “they (government) will have to put a couple goodies on the table for any type of engagement to take place.”
He said that it was optimistic to think that the government would put in place the necessary steps to see the establishment of the Public Procurement Commission and the holding of local government elections, for which the AFC and APNU, respectively have been campaigning, in order to stave off the motion.
But Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon yesterday stated that there was critical government business that needed to be addressed and contrary to the public perception the government was not withholding setting a date for the next sitting of the National Assembly to avoid the no-confidence motion.
On Wednesday, both the opposition’s Chief Whip Amna Ally and the government’s Chief Whip Gail Teixeira met to iron out the details on when the next sitting of parliament would be and discussions continued yesterday.
