PPP hints at Guyana snap election
Monday, March 04, 2013, Source
President Donald Ramotar addressing Sunday's anniversary
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Monday March 4, 2013 – President Donald Ramotar has accused the opposition parties of using their one seat majority in the National Assembly to derail legislative democracy as the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) hinted at the possibility of calling a snap general election in Guyana.
“We see that reality happening now in the first instance to elect the Speaker and deputy speaker, they took them both… every area we see them doing these things, passing bills that are unconstitutional,” President Ramotar told a ceremony marking the 16th anniversary of the death of former president Dr. Cheddi Jagan, the founder of the ruling party on Sunday.
Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, who also addressed the ceremony, told supporters “we must reach out to have more citizens casting their vote for the PPPC at the next elections whenever they might be – whether they might be tomorrow or next year or whether we run the full course of five years.
“We have suffered much during the last 16 months,” he added.
In the 2011 general election the Alliance for Change (AFC) and the grouping, A partnership for National Unity (APNU) that also includes the main opposition People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), won 33 of the 65 seats in the National Assembly.
President Ramotar said the unconstitutional nature of the opposition’s actions in the National Assembly was recently vindicated when the Chief Justice ruled that the National Assembly has no authority to reverse the rights of a member, a reference to moves by the opposition to prevent Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee from speaking in parliament.
Rohee himself told the event that he is confident that the PPPC would triumph and regain outright control of the 65-seat National Assembly in fresh general elections.
“Not only will we win the executive power, we will win the majority in parliament; that is where we want to regain our strength and we are committed to working towards that,” he said.
“We made some errors in the last elections and since then we have taken steps to correct those errors that we made. We are big enough to recognize the mistakes we made and we are big enough to correct those mistakes that we made,” said Rohee.
