Do the right thing
Feb 02, 2019 , Kaieteur News, https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.../do-the-right-thing/
Popular television personality, Oprah Winfrey, once said that you know that you are doing the right thing when it gives you a sense of peace.
When you are right, there is no need for you to defend what you are doing. Your actions speak for themselves.
Doing the right thing is a sign of personal integrity. It is a hallmark of honesty and being true to what you believe, whatever the consequences.
Doing the right thing is doing the morally correct thing. Everyone should have a sense of what is right and what is wrong. Sticking to what is right means doing what is morally right.
The President and his Cabinet should do the right thing. They know that they were lawfully defeated via a no-confidence motion. They should accept their defeat and abide by the consequences which have now been affirmed by the Chief Justice.
Due process can run its course. There is a ruling by the Speaker of the National Assembly that the no-confidence motion has been passed.
There is a ruling by the Chief Justice that the vote was valid.
Unless and until such time as those decisions have been overturned by a higher Court, they stand. The government should abide by them.
The government is setting a terrible example to the children of Guyana. They are saying to them that when you lose you can refuse to accept that fate.
General and regional elections will eventually have to be held. If the government loses those elections, will it turn around and refuse to cede power until court proceedings challenging those elections are held?
The PPPC complained about the 2015 elections. It contended that there were irregularities. But once the results were declared, notwithstanding the fact that the PPPC was filing an election petition challenging the results, it stepped aside for the APNU+AFC to assume office.
The Cabinet has been resigned by operation of law. Does the government need a higher court to tell them this is not so?
Would the PPPC have been doing the right thing had it said that it would not step aside until due process was exhausted? If that were the case, the PPPC would still be government because its elections petition has not yet been heard.
The President should do the right thing. The provisions of the Constitution which govern what happens when a no-confidence motion is passed are not difficult to understand and comprehend. They can easily be understood by the average citizen. In fact, the average citizen finds the government’s mathematics about what constitutes a majority is quite comical.
The government does not need to face further humiliation by having appeals to the Court of Appeal and thence to the Caribbean Court of Justice. The ruling of Justice George is as cogent and comprehensive a decision as there can ever be, examining all arguments, utilizing case law and arriving at decisions which will be hard to dispute.
Why waste time to go to the Court of Appeal when there is no likelihood of any of the points of law of the decision being overturned. What can be overturned? That 33 is a majority of 65? Which jurist will say that this is not so?
What will the rest of the world think of the government when they see and hear it arguing that 34 votes are needed for a majority of 65 persons?
By and large, the people of Guyana are fair-minded persons. When they lose and lose fairly and squarely, they accept their defeat and move on.
Those who are protesting the no-confidence motion are those who fear that they will lose their positions of power and prestige. They are not defending principles; they are protecting their power.
A new political culture has to be germinated if the children of Guyana are going to have a good future. That culture has to be based on politicians doing the right thing and not trying to be cunning and disingenuous.
