MAKE MY DAY!
July 20, 2014, By KNews, Filed Under Features/Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source - Kaieteur News
I have never ever heard about an opposition party writing to a sitting government indicating that it plans to move a motion of no-confidence against the government.
I have never heard of a case of dissenting members of a parliament giving written notice about their plans to move a motion of no-confidence in the government.
The AFC, which has been huffing and puffing about a no-confidence motion, is doing just that. It has written to the President indicating that it proposes to move a motion of no-confidence in the administration.
Why would any party do this? It makes no sense. Why inform the government of your intention? What is the purpose of so doing?
Is the AFC bluffing? Has it found itself in a situation whereby it knows that a great many of its supporters are not yet prepared to go to the polls, but it cannot reverse its threat to pass a no-confidence motion without losing face amongst the Guyanese people? As such, is it planning to make it seem as it gave the government a chance by writing to it but the government is the one who has forced this action?
The decision to move a motion of no-confidence has nothing to do with the government. It is the opposition’s call and it is the opposition that has to move the motion. Why is the AFC writing to the government? Is it a public relations stunt?
The AFC has to do what it has to do. If it has plans to move a motion of no-confidence it should go right ahead. Do what you have to do. Move the motion and live with the consequences! Do not try to pass the blame on the government on the pretext that it was the government that did not formally respond to your letter. You have made a threat and it is for you to decide whether you will eat humble pie or whether you would carry out the threat. The government cannot be held liable for your threat to pass a motion of no-confidence. It is your call. Do what you have to do?
But before you do anything, first decide whether you have the support of APNU. Already there are signals coming from within APNU that the coalition wants an election alliance with the AFC. The AFC was formed as a counterweight to both the PPPC and the PNCR, the latter being the principal party within APNU. There are signals that APNU wants the AFC under its umbrella. This of course is going to be resisted within the AFC, since that party was formed on the basis of being beholden to neither the PPPC nor the PNCR. It is the main third force party but APNU wants it, or so the signals seem to indicate, under its Big Tent.
The AFC has always, however, gotten its way with the PNCR. It has a way of outfoxing the PNCR. As Guyanese would say, the PNCR is AFC’s “packoo”. The problem is that at this stage the combined opposition may be one vote short of the majority needed to pass the no-confidence motion. A female member of parliament of the PNCR has been suspended from the party and it is hard to see how that suspended member would be allowed to support her party’s position in the National Assembly, even though the individual remains a member of parliament and has not lost any rights as such.
The AFC has found itself in this conundrum because it has now woken up to the reality that the PPPC is not running from local government elections. The PPPC is peaking. It was all along waiting until the road works that it had planned were completed. It was waiting all along until it had milked the political capital from the $10,000 per school child initiative. It was waiting until it was ready to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up Georgetown. It was waiting on all of these things before it announced the date for local government elections.
The AFC is seeing the writing on the wall. It knows that it cannot win a single NDC or a single municipality under local government elections. It knows that it will also not hold the balance of power in any NDC or municipality after local government elections are held under the new system that will be tested for the first time, whenever these elections are held. That will be humiliating for the AFC.
As such, it is planning to outfox APNU into lending support to a no-confidence motion so that it can force regional and general elections and avoid local government polls. The AFC will have its way with APNU. But it will not have its way with the government. Its plans to blame the no-confidence motion on the government will not go anywhere. Because the message from the President to the AFC seems to be: ”Make my day!”
