There have been two strands of comments recently about the workings of our National Assembly. The first focused on the role of the Speaker during Parliamentary debates, and was brought to the fore during consideration of the Budget on an agency-by-agency basis, when the Assembly had transformed itself into the “Committee of Supply”.
Apart from the merits or demerits of the high drama occasioned by a ruling of the Speaker, the incident raises a more fundamental issue of the rules of an institution that is based on the Liberal principle of “auditor alteram pars” — the other side must be heard — in a polity that is trenchantly polarised to such an extent that the requisite moderating “floating votes” that can be swayed by debate are missing. Politics is “us against them”.
By shutting down debate on a huge unexplained allocation to the Ministry of the Presidency, which was recently accused by the Opposition of arranging to repeat the country’s bitter and extended experience of rigged elections to shut them out of governance, the risk emerges of fanning those embers of suspicion into a raging inferno. The Speaker will have to be much more encouraging of real debate in our Assembly, and recognise the difference between debate and filibustering.
Another matter precipitating intense discussion was the unauthorised and still unexplained breaches of security in the National Assembly, which appears to have been brushed off. First was the appearance of a “Santa Claus” into the Chamber, bearing a dictionary intended for the Leader of the Opposition. In an age of terrorism, when the House of Commons recently beefed up its security because of an incident that occurred quite some distance from it, the “Santa Claus” could quite easily have been bearing a weapon.
In a polarised polity like Guyana, such a circumstance must be taken very seriously. Followers in such polities can be riled up to take extreme action, especially during tense standoffs. The President of the Republic certainly took a threat of assassination more seriously than the commanding officers of the Guyana Police Force. He ordered a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the conduct of the said officers during the investigation, and the Report resulted in a radical reordering of the GPF’s top echelons.
The lives of the Members of Parliament, including that of the Leader of the Opposition, are no less valuable or strategically important to the well-being of the nation than the President’s. The Police cannot cavalierly dismiss the “Santa Claus” breach as a “prank, and not a breach of security” without a proper investigation that at a minimum would reveal the identity of the “prankster”. To not have done so is to indicate they have not listened to the President’s caution when he constituted the CoI that resulted in the police shakeup.
The National Assembly, during parliamentary sittings, is fortified by barricades that have been much criticized, but retained because the security forces explained that the barricades are the first wall of security to prevent breaches. That wall of security was breached.
The Public Buildings that house the National Assembly are equipped with a battery of cameras in addition to any number of uniformed and plainclothes security officers from several agencies, including the Assembly and the general GPF. These were breached.
It has been stated that the “Santa Claus” was a “female,” who entered the National Assembly in “civilian” garb and must have changed into her costume in a washroom. Either the costume was secreted beforehand in the washroom, or was brought into the building by the female in what has to be a large bag. In the latter case, the standard operating procedure at the National Assembly is for such bags to be inspected; and in the former, it is hoped the SOP demand a “sweep” of all facilities during parliamentary sittings.
But the entrance of the “singing” female into the National Assembly after the Santa Claus incident had been heavily criticized. It demonstrates an unacceptable level of callousness to the security of MPs. The President should forthwith constitute a CoI into these breaches.
