No one expected that the National Assembly would suddenly become a haven of sober, sensible debate, and no one was disappointed. The 12th Parliament opened with the usual pantomime, this time with the main opposition walking out over the election of Mr Lenox Shuman as Deputy Speaker. This was in addition to Opposition Leader Joseph Harmon declaring that the government was illegal. The least that can be said on this score is that it was improper. If the coalition intends to take its place in Parliament and be a full participant in the democratic processes as the constitution requires, then it should keep its illegality allegations for the courtroom where they belong. As it is, the party just comes across as muddled in its thinking and inconsistent in its statements. One might have thought that it would have occurred to someone in APNU+AFC that this is not the most professional image to present to the electorate.
But the real problem came, as said earlier, with the matter of who should be deputy speaker. Mr Manzoor Nadir of the PPP/C was elected Speaker – there were no other nominations for the position − and his first task was to oversee the election of the deputy speaker. Traditionally, that post goes to a member of the opposition, and the coalition duly nominated Mr Raphael Trotman, who had been Speaker in the 2011-15 Parliament. To their surprise, however, Prime Minister Mark Phillips then nominated Mr Shuman, who holds one seat as part of a list joinder with two other parties. Following a division of the House, Mr Shuman was elected to the office on the basis of the government’s 33 votes plus his own. APNU+AFC has 31 seats.
During a break in the proceedings Ms Cathy Hughes adverted to the fact that Mr Shuman’s party had only secured 2,657 votes in the March 2nd election, as opposed to the more than 217,000 votes obtained by the coalition, and consequently he could hardly claim to represent the opposition and keep the PPP/C in check, more especially as he had been appointed an advisor to the government. She went on to relay to the media the concern and disappointment of her party, maintaining the election was just another indication of the government’s unwillingness to work together. “It is sad that we cannot do the decent thing, the honourable thing. For me personally it is a sad day that we come to this honourable House and we cannot even honour these traditions,” she said in reference to the need to abide by parliamentary conventions.
It was the PPP/C’s Ms Gail Teixeira, however, who was subsequently to remark that it was APNU which had first been in breach of the tradition that the deputy speaker should come from the opposition. In 2011, when the PPP/C were in a minority in the House although they held the presidency, APNU and the AFC had combined to elect Mr Raphael Trotman of the AFC as Speaker and then Ms Debbie Backer of APNU as his deputy.
This is not a legitimate excuse. It does the government no credit that they should seek to argue that because nine years ago the current opposition breached convention, they are justified in doing the same. Furthermore, once they do so we are in danger of the convention disappearing altogether, which would reduce even further the number of avenues in the legislature where the two main parties can find agreement. It is, in practice, an indication that the PPP/C seeks to override everyone else.
It is not even as if Mr Shuman is a suitable candidate for the post; arguably he is one of the least suitable from any side of the divide. It has been customary in the past to have a lawyer fill the office of Speaker, and while Mr Nadir does not come from the legal profession, he spent many years in the National Assembly and is very familiar with parliamentary practice. Mr Shuman, on the other hand, is a complete novice, and while he will have the assistance of the Clerk of Parliament, that might not be enough for him to manage the sessions with any degree of competence if conflicts or difficulties arise. If he does not acquit himself with proficiency on his first time in the chair, it will do great damage to any political reputation he has succeeded in building up to date. It can only be speculated on why he acceded to the PPP/C proposal to accept the deputy speakership in the first place. He should have refused it, both because of the convention and the fact he represents such a small constituency, as well as because of his inexperience. He should also have been sensitive to the possibility that the governing party wanted to use him for its own political ends. If it is not a case of political naivety, then he opens himself to the kinds of charges APNU+AFC will not hesitate to make, while the other parties in the joinder arrangement at a minimum will no doubt feel uncomfortable.
As mentioned earlier, Ms Hughes has already made reference to the fact that Mr Shuman had been appointed an advisor to the Minister of Public Works on civil aviation matters, which taken with the recent election hardly allowed him to claim he spoke for the opposition. It might be noted that his position is not quite the same as that of Mr Ralph Ramkarran who has been appointed an advisor on the border to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The latter issue is a national one, not a political one, and Mr Ramkarran as a former facilitator also was on the committee which advised Mr Carl Greenidge when he was foreign minister in the last government. It might be added that the PPP/C itself had representation on that same committee as well.
Mr Shuman is not sitting on a board or a committee, however, he is getting paid for a post – which is not to suggest in any way that he lacks the qualifications to do so. On its own, that might not have been a problem, but perception is everything in politics, and now with the addition of the deputy speakership, he will find himself accused of being in the back pocket of Freedom House, obliged to do their bidding. He will not be seen as an independent agent.
And as for the PPP/C, they are more and more coming to reveal that despite all the assurances and fine words, they have no intention of changing their traditional habits of total control. In its most egregious form they have displayed this in relation to Dr Vincent Adams, a disgraceful decision which they cannot defend on professional grounds. President Irfaan Ali when cornered by reporters would not answer questions on the matter, although after being pressed seemed to suggest that the reasons were political. So much for inclusivity and all that anodyne patter he trotted out when he became head of state.
So much for bridging the divide in Parliament too. The governing party is pretending that Mr Shuman is an opposition representative. Everyone can read the election results and no one will take the government seriously. No, the real reason for offering apparent plums to the newly appointed Deputy Speaker is to neutralise him. They do not want him building up an Indigenous constituency of his own because they need the Indigenous vote in order to return to office. Experienced political operators that they are, they calculate the nations will be distrustful of him, particularly if he sits in the House of Assembly as their Deputy Speaker, even if he does not compromise his independence.
Of course, under the joinder arrangement, Mr Shuman will not sit in Parliament for the whole five-year term, so it is not clear what the PPP/C intends to do after he vacates the seat. He has not indicated what he will do then too. In the meantime, those who voted for him would probably like to hear his rationalizations for his current political decisions.
