PPP says Corbin must explain position after protestors interrupt budget speech
Stabroek News
March 31, 2003
The PPP/C says it “vehemently condemns” what it describes as the PNCR-sponsored attempt to stop the proceedings of parliament on Friday, especially when Finance Minister Saisnarine Kowlessar was presenting the 2003 Budget estimates.
The presentation of the budget was briefly halted by a group of protestors, including several PNCR parliamentarians, after they had side-stepped police barricades and entered the compound of the Ocean View Convention Centre.
According to a release from Freedom House, the “PPP/C views this attempt as a vulgar attack on Guyana’s democracy.”
“Importantly, [Friday’s] storming of the National Assembly questions the sincerity of recent statements by the leader of the PNCR Robert Corbin, of the PNCR abandoning extra-parliamentary and disruptive politics,” the release said.
“That it comes at a time when representatives of the government and the PNCR were meeting to discuss parliamentary and constitutional issues, demands a public and full explanation by Mr Corbin on where his party currently stands on these matters,” the PPP/C declared.
The PPP/C also called on parliament to take stern action against the MPs who “participated in the disruptive behaviour outside of parliament and to suspend those who shamefully invaded Parliament.” On Friday just after the sitting had resumed, Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran strongly condemned the actions of the protestors and decried the response of the police to the situation.
The speaker noted that the parliament represented one of the highest symbols of democracy in a society and asserted that the protestors were “seeking to close down this symbol by desecrating it.”
The PPP/C also stated that “all decent and freedom-loving Guyanese must reject this latest attempt to derail our democracy and the workings of parliament.”
