Dear Editor,
The President’s belittling of the parliamentary Opposition is a mere veneer to distract from the magnitude of his deeds. The President has cast his stone; he will go down in the annals of Guyana’s history as the first President to violate the constitutional provisions regarding the appointment of the Chairman of GECOM. He has triggered a trajectory of his own making; his will be an ignoble notoriety.
He has refused to accept that his actions have immensely damaged the political fabric of our nation. He has further exacerbated the situation with his speech in Atlanta, Georgia, which further confirms that his objective is to take this country down a dangerous path of PNC party paramountcy.
The statement that the “PNC is the face of the future. We are what Guyana looks like, not the people that you saw on Thursday (in the National Assembly)” will require by itself many other letters, but immediately it can be interpreted as a clarion call that is arrogant, elitist, and ethnically biased, and hence fundamentally undemocratic.
Not surprisingly, the statement reflects the profound prejudice of an urban, older, male upper middle class in power who have no tolerance for anything different as is reflected repeatedly in their statements, deeds, policies and programmes. Fundamentally, they are anti-working class, anti-farmers, anti-women, anti-youth, anti-criticism, and undemocratic. While in Opposition they were good at dishing out their criticism, mainly based on fiction, but now in Government, they are extraordinarily thin-skinned, even though so many of them are former military men.
They have thrown out transparency and accountability, and believe that they are not open to scrutiny. The posture is one of the “Emperor”, and no one interrupts, troubles, or, worse yet, heckles the King – fortunately Emperors and Kings are of the past, thanks to the people’s struggles for democracy. He, like those before him, will find out in 2020 how Guyanese voters treasure their young democracy.
It appears that these upper middle-class sensibilities have been offended by the protest in the Chambers. Maybe those who have been so offended should take a look at the Mother of all Parliaments which often descends into loud cacophony or, worse yet, in other parliaments where there are fisticuffs and furniture throwing as recently seen in the Ugandan Parliament.
Is the Government saying to the people that it can do as it wishes with a mere less than one per cent more of the vote and everyone must sit there and be polite like schoolchildren so that we can show that we were well-brought up like refined old QC boys?
I have read some letters encouraging the Speaker to discipline all 32 PPP/C members. What I do know is despite the consistent unruly and disruptive behaviour, especially in the Seventh and 10th Parliaments by the then Opposition, no PNC MP was ever disciplined. In fact, only two MPs, Dr Cheddi Jagan and Ishahak Bashir have ever been disciplined in over 50 years in the National Assembly, and, this was done by Speaker Sase Naraine.
Let’s see if the PPP/C Members will once again be targets of an undemocratic National Assembly? But we can guarantee that silent we shall not be in the face of constant and consistent efforts to undermine our democratic values and rights.
Sincerely,
Gail Teixeira, MP,
Chief Whip,
Parliamentary
Opposition
