THE OPPOSITION GET FLAP-UP
November 18, 2014, By KNews, Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source - Kaieteur News
The Opposition parties get “flap- up”. They set a trap for the government; but they fall into their own trap.
They now feel shame bad because instead of their supporters having a big party and jumping up because the government would have had to resign, the planned no-confidence motion was nullified. Instead of the government resigning, the government remains in power while the opposition has to protest the fact they fall in their own trap.
How the opposition parties never saw prorogation coming is unexplainable. After all there has always been in the Constitution a back door exit for any President facing impeachment. Under the 1980 Constitution, Burnham could have prorogued or dissolved the National Assembly if faced with an impeachment. That has always been a reserve power and therefore the opposition ought to have known that it could have been used to prevent the no-confidence motion.
From day one therefore, they should have told the people what was possible since from as early as Saturday night people were in high spirits waiting for the passage of the no-confidence motion. The people were fed false expectations.
The opposition should not have expected the President to roll over and accept defeat so easily. The President is an office holder. If as an office holder, he sees someone coming to lawfully unseat him, what should he do more so if he has a constitutional power to circumvent that person from unseating him? Why would he not use that constitutional power at his disposal to prevent his government from being toppled? You coming to unseat me and I must sit down and do nothing about it when there are constitutional means at my disposal? Come on guys, did you really think that it was going to be that easy?
What sort of President did the opposition think they were dealing with? Did they really believe they were dealing with a lame duck President?
They played their cards and they tactically played it wrong. They get flap-up by the President and all they want to do now is to say that the President acted undemocratically.
Well how were they acting? How come it is democratic for them to use a constitutional power to remove the President but it is not democratic for the President to use a constitutional power so as to prevent them from removing him? Give me a break!
What were the opposition thinking when they threatened the President with a no-confidence motion, only to have him tell them to “bring it on?” What were they thinking? Did they really believe that when the President said “bring it on” that he was going to have every one of his Ministers get up and speak in the National Assembly against the no-confidence motion? Did they realistically think that the PPP was going to defend its record?
They hold the cards in the National Assembly because they have a one-seat majority. Were they hoping that in the end there would be a vote and the government would be forced to resign? Is that what they were hoping?
Or were the opposition thinking that after the no-confidence motion was passed that the President would run to the Courts to have it deemed unconstitutional? Is that what they were thinking? Or were they assuming that an action would have been filed to prevent debate on the no-confidence motion and then the Speaker would rule that parliament controls its own internal affairs and therefore no such action could prevent the debate? Is this what the opposition parties were assuming?
It is bizarre that with all the legal resources at their disposal, the opposition parties did not see prorogation coming? How could they not see that? Or were they hoping that at the last minute the government would make a grand concession to the opposition? This certainly could not have been the expectation since the AFC is particular had signaled that there was no turning back?
It is embarrassing that the opposition parties should find themselves in this quandary. They are now presenting the decision of prorogation as a rape of democracy. But they want everybody to accept that their no-confidence motion was democratic?
Yet they will now come to the Guyanese people and ask them to protest the decision of prorogation? Why should the Guyanese people follow an opposition which did not see prorogation as a response to the no-confidence motion? Why should anyone follow this opposition anymore?
To be let down again! To face another flap-up.
Source - http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....osition-get-flap-up/
