TIME FOR A REVIEW
Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
April 18, 2004
FOR Parliamentary democracy to prove meaningful, there must not only be regular meetings of the National Assembly and the functioning of its various committees. All the parties that contest an election must ensure participation in the process by their elected representatives.
What we have been witnessing in Guyana, ever since the loss of power by the PNC after 28 years in government, is the contempt that party's parliamentarians seem to hold for those who elected them.
How else should one reasonably explain the constant, and at times lengthy boycotts of Parliament by the PNC/R's representatives who would faithfully collect their salary and allowances, but fail to participate in the business of parliament?
All manner of excuses are rolled out to justify the party's boycott of sittings of the National Assembly, the latest being refusal to participate in the 2004 Budget debate.
Boycott is a legitimate weapon of protest and is used by all parties in a multi-party parliamentary democracy. Today's governing PPP has used it, occasionally, during its long dispensation in opposition. But to make a virtue of the politics of boycotts as the PNC/R has been doing, is a mockery of this form of protest.
As the Guyanese public has come to understand, a budget debate provides a very good opportunity for the parliamentary opposition to raise any number of questions and issues of concern and to which Cabinet ministers have an obligation to respond.
Having been first facilitated during the second term of the PPP/Civic to take up its seats in Parliament that had been forfeited by a lengthy boycott, the PNC/R was to return to the politics of a long spell of parliamentary boycott following the 2001 general election. It is a poor loser.
The Pattern
Of course, the party's MPs continued to collect their pay packets with regularity for no work done, but with a lot of political tantrums being thrown around and specious explanations offered.
The boycott of both the presentation and debate of the 2004 Budget followed the boycott of the dialogue process between President Bharrat Jagdeo and Opposition Leader Robert Corbin.
Prior to that, there were boycotts of oath-taking ceremonies, among them that of the new Police Commissioner Winston Felix, in protest, said the PNC/R, of alleged involvement of the Minister of Home Affairs, Ronald Gajraj, with death squads.
The PNC/R is yet to offer ANY EVIDENCE to either the Police or the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in support of its allegations. The party also knows that the man with a criminal record, who first sought to link Mr. Gajraj with the operations of death squads, is yet to produce a written statement in support of the allegations.
Had it considered its options more carefully, the PNC/R could have used the budget debate to address some of its allegations about death squad killings and the role of the Guyana Police Force.
The Home Affairs Minister was apparently in a mood of preparation to be challenged on the allegations during the budget debate. But no MP from the PNC/R showed up.
Instead, the PNC/R has been indulging in threats to destabilise the country and seeking to further undermine public confidence in the Police Force and Parliament itself. It is perhaps time that sober heads within its ranks inspire a critical review of the policies and sterile boycott politics of the PNC/R.