While not completely closing the door to talks with the government, the opposition is deeply skeptical that any future discussions with the Donald Ramotar administration will bear fruit given its response to previous meetings.
Three years into its five-year term, the government faces a no-confidence motion today and Ramotar has threatened to prorogue (suspend) or dissolve parliament should the vote go ahead. If passed, the no-confidence motion would force the President and his Cabinet to resignand general elections would have to be held within three months.
Should the president dissolve parliament, then elections would also have to be held within three months. However, the president can prorogue parliament for up to six months, giving the administration breathing room. Government officials have talked-up to the prorogation route and according to Attorney General Anil Nandlall, the suspension of the House presents a “golden opportunity” for both sides to agree on an agenda.
Yesterday, Ramotar told reporters that he has already made a decision on whether he would prorogue or dissolve parliament. “I have but you will know on Monday,” he said. He did not elaborate on what would happen thereafter. “We will see about all of those things. All those things are ahead of us. Let’s wait and see,” he said. The president said the decision he has made is in the nation’s interest. “Every decision that I have made in my political life has always been in the interest of the country,” he asserted. “I have never closed any door to talks and I am not…closing any door to talks now.”
Based on statements by officials, the President is likely to prorogue parliament. “Prorogation is valid up to six months…so the government can’t go beyond six months and in my view this presents an opportunity for the opposition and the government to return to the table. The prorogation can be recalled at any time and Parliament can resume sitting by another proclamation issued by the President once we arrive at a position so this presents an opportunity for the government and opposition to sit around the table to work out an agenda that will benefit the people of this country,” Nandlall told Stabroek News on Saturday.
Exhausted
Yesterday, Leader of the Opposition David Granger expressed skepticism on talks. “At this point… APNU has exhausted its options and opportunities for talks with the President,” he told Stabroek News. “The President has not negotiated in good faith.” He said that the matters that the president spoke of such as the anti-money laundering bill have been on the table for the past six months and nothing has happened. He noted that Nandlall and APNU’s Shadow Minister of Legal Affairs Basil Williams had even met and agreed on a process by which bills passed by the opposition would return to the president for assent “but everything has now been stalled because of the president’s attitude to the talks.”
Granger said that it was the President who shut the door to the talks and they were shocked by his announcement at the recently-held National Toshaos Conference (NTC) that it would be foolish to call a date for local government elections anytime soon due to a looming no-confidence motion against his government. The holding of local government elections had been one of APNU’s main demands.
“It was the president who refused to meet any (of the) demands of the opposition,” Granger said yesterday. According to the APNU leader, the move to either prorogue or dissolve parliament is the “worst possible thing.”
He acknowledged that should parliament be prorogued, the situation would be a new one but said they have to wait and see what the government does today. It would be “speculative” to say what would happen after, he said, even as he stressed that the President has not indicated any willingness to accede to their demands.
Granger, however, did not completely rule out future talks should parliament be prorogued. “If he (Ramotar) wants to move forward, he will have to reconsider the matters AFC and APNU brought before him,” he said. “The ball is in President Ramotar’s court,” he added. The opposition leader said that APNU is tired of the gamesmanship. “He is playing with the people’s rights, he is playing with the Constitution,” he asserted.
Earlier, he had told reporters that APNU would not engage under duress and took a hard line on talks. “We can’t engage with a gun at our heads. This National Assembly is a forum for national debate. It’s the voice of the people. I can’t see how he can prorogue the parliament and expect us to have any discussions under duress. The place for discussions is in the National Assembly. If he shuts it down, he shuts down discussion, he shuts down dialogue,” he declared. “It’s a very risky step for him to take.”
On whether he would enter into talks, Granger said that the place for discussion is in the House. “I cannot see what he would have to discuss with me that cannot be discussed in the National Assembly. I’ve exhausted my discussion with the President and he has taken a line which I feel is undemocratic and uncalled for,” he said referring to the threat to prorogue parliament.
“The place for a rational debate to take place is in the National Assembly. If he shuts it down, he shuts down debate, he must bear the consequences of that decision,” he said.
Further, Granger said that should parliament be prorogued, the government could expect “resistance” from APNU. “It is not something we will accept and it is not something which we will encourage our supporters to accept. It is a denial of democracy,” he said. As to the forms of resistance, the APNU leader responded: “heaven knows…what the people will do. The people are angry…” He said that if the people protest, APNU will support them.
The big concern is the representation of the people’s interests, he said. “This is an abomination. There is no state of emergency, there is no national flood or catastrophe, there is no justification for shutting down the National Assembly whether it’s for a short period or long period. There is no justification whatsoever,” Granger asserted. He said that he does not believe that protests can create an ethnic rift as dissatisfaction with the PPP has crossed ethnic lines.
Treated contemptuously
Meantime, AFC leader Khemraj Ramjattan told Stabroek News that the AFC in the interest of the country will never leave any door locked. “But we feel we were treated contemptuously by the Ramotar administration which never wanted to as much make a phone call to us. It felt it could have unilateral dialogue with APNU and work out some advantageous agreement,” he noted. Even when APNU requested that the AFC be part of that engagement, Ramotar was not inclined to do so, the AFC leader said.
He said that moreover, with all the illegalities committed such as spending money without parliamentary approval, among others, “I seriously see no engagement with this wholly obnoxious administration.”
With the government likely to prorogue parliament, he said that the opposition would just have to bide their time for a tabling of another motion of no-confidence when Parliament resumes. However, he noted that this is hoping that all hell does not break lose in the streets before that time by the frustrated masses spontaneously reacting to the PPP’s lawlessness. The PPP is provoking protests and the business community should demand that the government halts its “bellicose trajectory and march into utter madness,” he declared.
In terms of the way forward, should parliament be prorogued, Ramjattan said that the AFC would continue to do what they have been doing and educate the people on why the PPP is no good for Guyana as well as regionalise and internationalise this “executive lawlessness” by asking for condemnation from Caricom, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the Organisation of American States, Commonwealth Heads, as well as the diplomatic community here. He said that they also want to persuade local organisations like trade unions, business associations, and civil society to show outrage at this development.
Additionally, a message has to be sent to all Guyana, especially the young people, that the PPP is not the answer to the problem but rather, is the problem, Ramjattan said. “It seeks only to perpetuate itself, and plunder our patrimony. Its history up till today is best captured by that old adage: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
“Today, Chatrees, thoroughbreds and feral blasters are their self-styled descriptions for the same racketeers now that we see the degeneration,” he added.
“The irony of (today) – and the farce of it all too – is that on the same day the President summoned the convening of Parliament, he had to buckle and summon a prorogation. He took so long to convene after the recess, and then abruptly suspends. This is governing without Parliamentary scrutiny, and a subversion of the Opposition’s constitutional right to debate and the Legislature’s right to vote on a no-confidence motion against a ruling Government. Prorogation was never intended to be abused this way,” Ramjattan asserted.
He said that there was a prorogation of parliament in 2002 but it was in different circumstances. This was when the proceedings of the National Assembly had to be shifted to the Ocean View Convention Centre for several months to ensure the completion of works to Parliament building. “Raphael (Trotman), our Speaker, recently reminded us that in 2002 when Presidential Proclamation No. 2 of 2002 was issued on 27th November, 2002, bringing the First Session of the 8th Parliament to an end, and appointing December 5, 2002 as the new date that the Second Session of the 8th Parliament would be convened at the Ocean View Convention Centre. This was done so that repairs could be effected on the roof in the Parliament Chamber. All business on the Order Paper at the time came to an end and a new Order Paper with “fresh” business was commenced at Ocean View,” Ramjattan said.
