Has President Ramotar no shame, dignity and/or self-respect?
A person that holds the highest office in the land is expected to display behaviour of the most sacred kind in the system of values that holds civilization intact. Most leaders have not done so. Some have, some try to. But they all try to avoid undignified, crass, immoral, indecent, profane, feral behaviour.
Should a nation’s leader descend to semi-civilized or vulgar or shameless or disrespectful conduct, he/she certainly would jeopardize the life of their office. At all times a Prime Minister or a President must be seen saying and doing things that convey to the world that he/she has commonsense, rationality, logic and intellectual knowledge. That person may not have such qualities, but it must be done in ways that people will believe that they do.
President Ramotar’s letter yesterday to the Opposition Leader for a post-prorogation dialogue fails to achieve this conveyance. It is an intellectually barren, political silly and personally insulting letter (to Mr. Granger).
After the dictatorial suspension of Parliament by Mr. Ramotar, a repugnant manipulation of the Constitution never seen before in any CARICOM territory, Mr. Ramotar writes the Opposition Leader in a manner that is extremely condescending. If the PPP is going to achieve any significant number of votes in the next election, it had better dump Mr. Ramotar peremptorily. He is so politically flawed that C.N. Sharma may do better than him at the polls.
Mr. Ramotar’s letter contains the following unbelievable words in reference to the no-confidence motion; “The parliamentary opposition you led at the sitting planned for November 10, 2014 would have ended the life of the 10th Parliament, leaving unaddressed many important issues of the day.”
Nowhere in Mr. Ramotar’s foolish missive did he give recognition to the fact that the Guyana Constitution allows Parliament to dissolve itself to have another general election. That is the legal, constitutional and political right of Parliament.
What that section of Mr. Ramotar’s missive openly tells you is that he is saying, “I as President have rights, you as Parliament do not, and I determine what becomes of Parliament.
Mr. Ramotar continues; “My decision to prorogue Parliament on that day has delayed such an eventuality, thereby providing an opportunity to still have the tenth Parliament discuss and conclude those issues.”
This is amazingly stupid stuff from the highest office in the land. Which country does President Ramotar live in? The no-confidence vote was announced in June. Mr. Ramotar was written to by the AFC tying the no-confidence motion to a series of requests, a resolution of which could have avoided the no-confidence process; Mr. Ramotar rejected that pathway.
Mr. Ramotar then prorogues Parliament, writes the Opposition Leader and tells him I have matters that are still to be resolved therefore let’s talk to resume Parliament and have my agenda pass. Why didn’t Ramotar seek dialogue before the no-confidence plan was about to be tabled?
Alright, let’s say the combined opposition was going for new elections anyway, what is there to change its mind now that Parliament is prorogued?
Is President Ramotar imbecilic enough to think that the PNC is so stupid, sycophantic and self-destructive that it is going to sit down with Ramotar and discuss Ramotar’s “unaddressed issues” with a promise to resolve them if the President resuscitates Parliament? Any opposition party that behaves so slavish is useless and should be shouted down and be disbanded by its membership.
Ramotar has put the PNC is a position where if it listens and responds to him, its membership and supporters would denounce it. The commonsensical thing for Mr. Ramotar to do was to write both AFC and APNU to inform them that Parliament would be resumed with the request by the presidency that the Government’s “unaddressed issues” be given priority for discussion. That was all that was required.
Even this elementary strategy to save face, Mr. Ramotar cannot grasp.
So what does Mr. Ramotar do instead? He puts conditions on the resumption of Parliament and he is shameless in saying so. He stated in his correspondence; “…I propose a high-level engagement…to agree on a post-prorogation Parliamentary agenda.” Mr. Ramotar is barefacedly saying, talk to me first before I open Parliament again.
In the first part of his letter he gave his reason for prorogation – Government business that was left unattended. In the second part of his missive, he wants a post-prorogation agenda. But the agenda has to be governmental business because the lack of discussion on such was the reason he de-mobilized Parliament in the first place. The die is cast. The opposition has no way out but elections.
But Ramotar is fighting for his full term. He cannot get it now. Too late.
