Can someone tell this politician about context?

Nov 02, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Mrs. Sheila Holder addressing the convention of her party, the AFC, last Sunday took a dig at me by saying she doesn’t care about my accusations of her voting for the PPP in Parliament once what the PPP produces in the National Assembly is good for Guyana.
Mrs. Holder’s statement is not without its merits within the context of theory but in the peculiar situation of Guyana, her observation is barren and uninspiring. Mrs. Holder is old enough to know that everything in life is contextualized. That is the nature of human existence – everything has context.
Context may be wrong or right but it exists. Mrs. Holder herself has on a number of occasions contextualized the peculiar nature of Guyanese politics.
She told the Stabroek News last week that the Guyana Government will not allow constitutionally independent institutions to function. I have written several times that Mrs. Holder doesn’t understand politics in general and should be careful with what she says.
If I do not like purple people and will not allow purple people to benefit from the country to which they belong then why should purple people support my policy of free milk for school children even though purple children will get milk?
The reason is context. Within the context of race politics, purple people have an obligation to oppose me because I don’t like them.
This is the aspect of Guyanese politics Mrs. Holder is yet to comprehend. The politics of the PPP is played out as a zero sum game.
Where has Mrs. Holder been the past 18 years? Her own party leader, Mr. Raphael Trotman has been a victim of this zero sum venality. Dr. Roger Luncheon told the media that the Freedom of Information Act that the ruling party plans to introduce in Parliament will be a protracted process because of the technical details involved. But Mr. Trotman, a lawyer with a Masters degree in international law, has a completed Act with all the details already worked out and which he arrived at after looking at other countries’ legislation.
If Mrs. Holder’s politics is to vote with the PPP when the legislation is in the interest of Guyana, then why doesn’t she persuade the ruling party to vote for opposition Bills when they serve the benefit the entire country?
My point is if the ruling party cannot vote for opposition Bills and opposition amendments, then the opposition has a moral obligation to the people who vote for it not to support the ruling party in Parliament.
This is what is meant by context. Let me specify context within the context of Guyana’s politics. Opposition support for Government’s legislation must be premised on the fact that opposition and government must work together for the common good.
It is moronic and idiotic politics for an opposition in the National Assembly to go on voting for Bills tabled by the majority bench and the majority bench does not respond in kind.
You will not find this type of political contortion in any other parliamentary system. Have the PNC and AFC, and in particular, Mrs. Holder, canvassed the views of their constituencies on their voting patterns in the House? Has Mrs. Holder gone to AFC enclaves and explained to them that the PPP gives no quarters in Parliament and that the Government has tossed out Trotman’s Freedom of Information Bill with contempt? Is Mrs. Holder paying attention to the politics of Obama?
The American President said he wished that the law-makers could have done something to prevent the minority Republicans from using the filibuster mechanism to stifle the Democrats’ parliamentary agenda. What this means is that Mr. Obama wants to see a process that would stop the opposition from opposing for the sake of opposing.
This is what opposition does. If there is no generosity from the majority benches, then you have to oppose them. And you have to confront them because that is what you were put there in the legislature to do.
As I wrote above in my opening paragraphs, there is nothing wrong with opposition support for legislation that enhances the happiness of a country. But this is in the context of a working relation between parliamentary adversaries where the nation’s interests take priority. We don’t have that situation in Guyana.
The PPP is an elected dictatorship (Mrs. Holder should read the works of American political theorist, Fareed Zakaria, and his concept of elected dictatorship) that has lost reason, decency and nationalist sentiments. The parliamentary opposition’s obligation to the Guyanese people is to oppose this dictatorship every minute of every day.

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Can someone tell this politician about context?

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