Dear Editor,
“Tied vote on budget bill would see gov’t fall.” This was the screeching headline of an article quoting former PPP/C Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr. Ralph Ramkarran, which Stabroek News published on November 26, 2018.
Commenting on the PPP/C no confidence motion that was recently filed in Parliament against the APNU+AFC government, and the 2019 Budget Appropriation Bill, Ramkarran stated, inter alia, that “The PPP needs two votes. One would only neutralize the advantage but the other will see them winning the motion unlike in the passage of the Appropriation Bill. If there is a tie when the no-confidence motion goes to the floor then the Standing Orders state that the motion doesn’t pass. And by the same logic, if the Appropriation (bill) is put to the House and there is a tie then that doesn’t pass or it is defeated. That is very serious because what that means is that the government will fall”.
Mr. Ramkarran’s contention that if a government Member of Parliament (MP) votes against the Budget and the overall vote is tied, the budget bill will be defeated, and the coalition government will automatically fall is utterly false. It has no constitutional basis.
Clearly, Mr. Ramkarran and Stabroek News are on a mission. Stabroek News has transformed itself into the official public relations arm of the PPP and has been peddling all sorts of nonfactual and ridiculous PPP claims and theories. Suffice to say, that it is irresponsible to publish such wild and tenuous speculation as if it were fact. Everyone should by now surmise that Stabroek News’ overt hostility towards the coalition government, and its relentless pursuit of a dangerously subversive agenda is meant to engender instability, trepidation and uncertainty in the nation.
Here is why Mr. Ramkarran’s claim, albeit subversive, is ridiculously and inherently dishonest. Mr. Ramkarran knows that if any coalition MP votes against the government, the government can, prior to the declaration of the vote by the Clerk, seek an adjournment and instantly recall and replace said member on the spot, then resume the vote when the body reconvenes – a vote which the government will win.
Article 156 (3) of the Guyana constitution grants the power of the Representative of the coalition’s list of parliamentary candidates to at any time issue a written notice of recall to a Member of Parliament in whom the coalition has lost confidence, and that such notice shall be forwarded to the Speaker. The Representative of the List will, concomitant with the recall notice to the Speaker, extract a replacement to fill the vacancy created by the recall. This provision may also be invoked to recall a MP who deliberately absents himself from Parliament for these votes, as no government will allow a traitor to topple it.
Consequently, any coalition MP who attempts to or votes against the government in this manner will fail and instantly destroy and end his/her parliamentary and political career.
Readers must therefore dismiss the referenced article as a deception.
Yours faithfully,
Rickford Burke
Editor’s note: This letter has been published primarily because of its attack on this newspaper. It has been edited.