Government yesterday ruled out a return to the National Assembly and the tabling of the 2015 national budget before general elections on May 11th.
“I do believe I can speak for reasonable Guyanese by concluding that the 10th Parliament is history,” Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon told a news briefing at the Office of the President yesterday.
On Tuesday, President Donald Ramotar announced May 11th as the date for general and regional elections, ending two months of suspense after he prorogued the Parliament on November 10 last year. However, Parliament remains suspended and sections of civil society including the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) have expressed concern that Ramotar’s announcement did not comply with the constitutional requirement for the naming of the date of elections.
There has been speculation that Ramotar left the door opened for the tabling of a budget by declining to dissolve Parliament at the same time he had announced May 11th as polling day.
However, Luncheon yesterday made it clear that while government was working on a 2015 budget, it will not be laid until the 11th Parliament. “There will be a budget, the budget is being prepared…it will be presented to Parliament and we understand that to mean the 11th Parliament of Guyana,” he said.
“The date of May the 11th indeed did indeed arise some questions—what about budget? What about access to public funding for the period until the 11th Parliament?” he stated, while noting that preparation of the 2015 budget is ongoing.
“There is not any significant reason why the budget for the year 2015 would not be, as is usual, prepared. What would obviously be different is that the budget and its presentation to the 11th Parliament would of course be subsequent to the conclusion of the general and regional elections and the installation of the executive that succeeds in this 2015 election,” Luncheon added.
Attorney-General Anil Nandlall has confirmed that Parliament remains suspended. The constitution provides that general and regional elections are held within three months of the dissolution of Parliament.
The GHRA said that Ramotar’s announcement that he intends to hold elections on May 11th does not preclude the possibility of him changing his mind. “Proclamation of elections in Guyana is linked constitutionally to either prorogation or dissolution of Parliament, it is not decreed unilaterally by the President,” the organization had said in a statement.
The statement noted that Article 69 of Guyana’s Constitution states that Parliament must assemble within six months of Parliament being prorogued or four months of it being dissolved. “In the case of dissolution, elections must follow within three months (Art. 61), allowing a month for allocations of seats, resolving disputed results and other administrative matters before the new Parliament is convened,” the GHRA had said.
Ramotar’s date of May 11th “would seem to be premised on the six months following prorogation, but he has retained the option of re-calling Parliament in the meantime,” the GHRA asserted.
Luncheon would not say yesterday when the proclamation would be made but said that this was the direction government was moving towards. “There couldn’t conceivably be, at this stage in the electoral calendar, the naming of the date for elections, for some mysterious sort of occurrence of returning to the days of the 10th Parliament,” he said.
“I think it would be more reasonable, it would be consistent with logic, for us to be contemplating the date of the dissolution of the 10th Parliament and the President’s announcement of that date,” he added.
