Dr Cheddi “Joey” Jagan Jnr has condemned the Donald Ramotar administration’s decision to suspend the Parliament, saying it is “anti-democratic” and “bordering on dictatorship.”
Jagan Jnr, the son of late president and People’s Progressive Party (PPP) founder Dr Cheddi Jagan, also calls the prorogation a slap in the face to his father’s legacy and service to the nation.
“Mr Ramotar’s decision to prorogue Parliament is a decision that I, a member of the PPP/Civic list in the 2011 general election, cannot accept, but only condemn as anti-democratic and bordering on dictatorship,” he writes in a letter to the editor published in yesterday’s Stabroek News.
Ramotar issued the proclamation for the suspension of Parliament on Monday to avoid a no-confidence vote against his government in the National Assembly.
He said if attempts at dialogue with the opposition fail during the prorogation period, which could last as much as six months, he would move for general elections.
Adding his voice to the outcry that has been stirred by the decision, Jagan Jnr says that while he did not think the opposition should use the no-confidence option, he also does not believe that suspending the Parliament is in the national interest.
According to him, Parliament along with the free press is the backbone of any democracy. In disassociating himself from the decision, he warns that the PPP is headed down “the road to perdition by breaking the backbone of democracy” in the country.
“President Cheddi would never have suspended Parliament as this PPP government has done. Even in the 1960s Jagan offered a solution of coalition government, with compromise and national reconciliation,” he writes.
“…To close down Parliament, where Jagan was moulded and nurtured as a politician, is a slap in the face of his legacy and his service to this nation. Shame on those who made this decision and shame on those who agreed to it–a disgrace and calamity for our nation,” he adds.
Jagan Jnr also notes that he has on a number of occasions advised Ramotar, who heads a minority government, to bring APNU into the fold of government and to hold local government elections. Of the latter, he adds that the polls were promised personally to him by President Ramotar but never materialised. He calls the failure to hold the elections, due since 1997, a grave mistake on the PPP’s part, which will come to haunt the current regime.
“…The presumption of this government in not holding local elections in combination with financial irregularities and strange happenings with foreign investments convinces me that the decision to close down Parliament is definitely not in the interest of our nation, especially given the dread effects it will have on the business climate in Guyana,” he also says.
