Roopnaraine questions Nagamootoo's impartiality Following 'leftover votes' remark Stabroek News April 14, 2000 A member of the constitution reform Oversight Committee (OSC) has expressed concern about the impartiality of OSC chairman, Information Minister, Moses Nagamootoo in an open letter released to the media on Wednesday. Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, who represents the Alliance for Guyana of which the Working People's Alliance was one of its partners, said his concern had been prompted by Nagamootoo's remarks on April 7, during the recently concluded budget debate. During his presentation, Nagamootoo reminded the House that the WPA sat in parliament merely on "leftover votes", which Roopnaraine said was in response to an opinion seeking a turning away, in this case for a limited period, from the road of almost certain instability in the political system. Roopnaraine contended that Nagamootoo's remarks questioned the WPA's right to sit as an equal member of the OSC and as a result he felt that he could "no longer rely on the protection of the chairman" if he were to follow the logic of the remarks. "It is hard to separate the thought process out of which you spoke in the Assembly on Friday from the thought process which you bring to bear in the Oversight Committee, I am forced to assume that the same contempt, expressed or not, will inform your judgement," Roopnaraine's letter said. Roopnaraine said it seemed that "now a level of consensus and agreed disagreement has been reached at the constitution reform process, it is a convenient time for particular individuals on the government benches to express their true feelings." The WPA co-leader questioned Nagamootoo's ability to "make any real contribution to democracy, much less to the inclusionary democracy the [Constitution] reforms intend." "If the standard for judging ideas is the same as the standard for judging the allocation of seats, then we are truly on the road to a paradise of enlightenment and super-human development and will be the envy of the rest of humanity," the letter said. Referring to what he thought was the motive behind Nagamootoo's remarks, Roopnaraine said that while some observers "put down the interventions to what they are pleased to call insanity," he thought otherwise. "... I tend rather to see them as an escape of a culture of political coarseness long held under restraint by the constitutional reform process which has been getting in the way of accustomed behaviour." Roopnaraine recalled that he served on every parliamentary committee for constitutional reform since 1994, and that he expressed "on the floor of the House and elsewhere my respect for the manner in which Mr Bernard De Santos, Mr Reepu Daman Persaud, and especially Mr Ralph Ramkarran conducted the business of the select committee and the commission." Nagamootoo could not be reached for a comment about the letter after it was received, but he did refer to it during an OSC meeting earlier in the day, explaining that he had only received it when he arrived for the meeting. He said while he and Haslyn Parris of the PNC, who is responsible for planning and monitoring the committee's time bound work programme, were nominees of their respective parties, they had sought to approach their work in a non-partisan manner. Roopnaraine was absent from the meeting and Nagamootoo said that he did not believe his absence was related to the contents of the letter.