APNU this afternoon said it was enraged by President Donald Ramotar’s decision to prorogue Parliament.
The APNU statement follows:
A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) is enraged at President Donald Ramotar’s promulgation of a proclamation to prorogue parliament on Monday 10th November 2014. This is the darkest day for democracy in Guyana.
This ‘Proclamation’ has effectively paralysed the parliamentary process and smothered the voices of the people’s legitimate representatives in the National Assembly. It is an affront to the Guyanese people who three years ago, in November 2011, voted for A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance for Change (AFC) to have the majority of seats in the National Assembly.
President Ramotar has now single-handedly engineered a constitutional crisis. The main purposes of the ‘Proclamation’ are to allow the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) to avoid parliamentary scrutiny while it attempts to:
- prevent debate on the Opposition ‘no-confidence’ motion;
- prevent the holding of local government elections;
- prevent debate on financial excesses and impropriety;
- protect the reputations of his Ministers from parliamentary sanction;
- permit the PPP’s campaign for general and regional elections to proceed;
- permit the continued expenditure of state funds without parliamentary scrutiny.
The President’s ‘Proclamation’ to prorogue parliament is a challenge to the entire nation. He has no grounds for his crude smothering of parliamentary independence.
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APNU will not accept this denial of democracy and will not be intimidated by the PPP/C’s dictatorial behaviour.
APNU is resolved to resist the President’s ‘Proclamation’. APNU calls on all the good people of Guyana everywhere to join in a civil movement for the restoration of parliamentary democracy by peacefully resisting the PPP/C’s resort to dictatorship and to call for the revocation of this ‘Proclamation’.