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Deputy Speaker position should be given to the PPP – Rohee
General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Clement Rohee says if the political Opposition is talking about inclusionary democracy and national unity, then the position of Deputy Speaker of Parliament should be given to the PPP.
General Secretary of the PPP Clement Rohee
Rohee was at the time responding to pronouncements made by Leader of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), David Granger, who called on the PPP to abandon its “winner takes all” attitude and embrace inclusive governance.
According to Rohee “Granger and the PNC [Peoples National Congress] is in no position nor do they have the moral right to lecture the PPP and the PPP/C Administration on the issue of inclusive governance and participatory democracy when they have consistently rejected all reasonable gestures made by the PPP for national reconciliation and a Government of national unity.”
He said that “the PPP during the PNC-engineered disturbances of the early 1960s offered the PNC to share Government on almost parity terms, but the PNC bluntly refused and teamed up with reactionary elements to bring down the PPP Government.”
Rohee condemned what he termed as the inflexible stance taken by the combined Opposition Parliamentary parties “when in the aftermath of the November 2011 elections they consorted with each other to deny the PPP, which obtained the largest bloc of votes, both the position of Speaker and Deputy Speaker. And as if that was not enough, the combined Opposition, through its one seat majority, allocated to themselves a disproportionate number of representatives in all of the Parliamentary sector committees in order to exercise control over these bodies.”
“It should be noted for the record that even though the PPP in previous elections won overall parliamentary majorities, the Party never hogged for itself both the positions of Speaker and Deputy Speaker, with the latter position always going to the PNC with the full support of the PPP,” said Rohee.
He outlined that the PPP always ceded the Deputy Speaker seat to the Opposition. “Why do they want both the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker?”Rohee questioned.
Rohee posited that in order for inclusionary governance to be accepted between the PPP and the APNU, certain basic steps should be made, namely that the Deputy Speaker position should be handed to the PPP.
“All Parliamentary committees ought to be rearranged in order for the PPP to have a proportionate number of seats corresponding to its representation in the National Assembly while the APNU and AFC must stop linking the AML/CFT (Anti Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Bill) to any other piece of legislation and pass that legislation forthwith without any conditions.”
He said further that “the AFC [Alliance for Change] and the APNU must respect the fact that there is a constitutionally elected government in Parliament which has seats and has a right to present a Budget to the National Assembly and that it is the Minister of Finance who has the final say in respect to monies allocated to the Government of Guyana.”
According to Rohee, there are a number of other steps “but I feel these are the first steps that the combined opposition must take in order to create the atmosphere that is conducive to any forward movement in terms of discussions, etc, on this matter.”
When asked if the Opposition, which has the majority in the Parliament, should assent to those steps since it would seem as if the PPP Administration intends to rule as though it has an exclusive majority, Rohee responded by saying that “It takes two hands to clap. People in these issues look to Government to do almost everything. The Government must concede this, it must compromise and so forth…everything is with the Government. The Opposition now has control over the National Assembly. Don’t they have something to give? If you want an atmosphere of trust to develop obviously you have to cede something. What is it you are willing to concede?”
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