Responding to comments made by Attorney General, Basil Williams, at a press conference hours before his, Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, told members of the media that Williams is “a raving lunatic”.
He said that Williams is now making a horde of ridiculous statements to prop up his contention that the vote made by Charrandass Persaud, in support of the no-confidence motion, is null and void; that the motion which the Speaker of the House declared as carried, on December 21 last, should be reversed.
Williams, had sought to, at his press conference, explain why his government took the position that the no-confidence motion required 34, and not 33 votes, to secure an absolute majority for it to be carried.
Bharrat Jagdeo, Leader of the Opposition
Since the government had, immediately after the vote, announced they would accept its validity, Williams sought to explain why the government now moves in contradiction to that statement. He said that he, as well as the other government officials, stayed tightlipped about the motion requiring 34 votes because, if they had said so, the other moles on the government’s side would have been activated and would have given the opposition an absolute majority.
Jagdeo, in disbelief, said, “[Basil Williams] believes that if he had spoken about the majority on the government, it might have activated other moles on the government benches. So, he is saying, now, that one was paid for, but that there may be other moles too, who would have been activated by the PPP, had he spoken at the moment, that 34 votes were needed.
Nobody could take Basil Williams seriously. This is the ranting of a lunatic, not an Attorney-General; a lunatic. They are making people laugh at us.”
He further said that Williams is lying because he would have raised this contention immediately after the Speaker of the House declared that the motion is carried.
“When the speaker said the motion is passed in parliament, 33-32, and the speaker ruled on it, he didn’t say immediately thereafter that you needed 34; that the passage of the no-confidence motion was invalid. He sat in a press conference – this is after the other moles couldn’t be activated – and the Prime Minister said it’s passed 33-32.”
He also said that Nigel Hughes who, initially raised the contention that 34 votes are needed, cannot be trusted to be impartial in this matter because he bears a conflict of interest, in that his wife, Cathy Hughes, is a sitting minister of government.
The Leader of the Opposition said that the government is scrambling to come up with multiple, ridiculous reasons why they General Elections should not be held, because they are afraid that criminal acts committed by them would be uncovered.
“A lot is at stake for them, tens of millions of dollars of bribery.”
Jagdeo said that should the PPP/C win the next general election, “One of the first things we will do, and I’m committing to do – is [to] hire a specialized company to trace all the assets of former Government officials as well as current ones…”
He explained that such an investigation would also have a scope which includes Government officials from the previous Ramotar-led PPP/C administration.
“Then you will see what they’re trying to protect.”
