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Mar 23, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Speaker Raphael Trotman is making some strange pronouncements which when contextualised in Guyanese politics are going to lead to serious confrontation between the Speaker and the opposition. First, he opted out of politics and returned just as the election campaign was heating up after the death of Sheila Holder.
Secondly, he stated that he opted out of parliamentary politics after the November 28 general elections because he refused to be part of a Parliament that is characterised by such divisions as he has seen in Guyana.
This is a troubling political reflection because it lacks context. When epistemological analysis is applied to it then truth becomes non-existent. If a country’s Parliament is bitterly divided then who is doing what to whom and for what purpose. If Speaker Trotman lived in Guyana all his life and cannot answer that, then I am afraid he is going to be subjected to relentless criticism which will be justified.
The trouble is that Mr. Trotman is in a position to answer that question more than most Guyanese because he had experience in politics and in the National Assembly. Guyana’s National Assembly is an arena for zero sum politics because since self rule in the fifties the PPP, then the PNC then the PPP again have practiced tribal and undemocratic politics that has denuded Guyana of freedom, justice and liberty. Parliament has been a casualty of this tragedy.
To say that the House is a relentless battle ground is to undervalue the efforts of good men and brave women who have fought for justice outside of the parliamentary arena so that Guyana could be a democratic nation where Parliament will not be a toy for dictators. In other words, the Speaker needs to know that those divisions in the House came about because of authoritarian desires on the part of the Executive to control the nation and monopolise power.
Speaker Trotman needs to know that these disunities that deterred him from accepting a parliamentary seat from the AFC after November 28 came about because the Executive under the PPP Government has obliterated the Legislature as one of the three poles in the separation of power. I honestly don’t know what Mr. Trotman meant when he declared he could no longer be a parliamentarian in the National Assembly because of the acidic quarrels that dominate Parliament.
Thirdly, at an internal AFC meeting last month, he told the gathering that they must understand that he cannot be openly political because as Speaker he has to be neutral. I wrote a column in response to that esoteric view (“Raphael Trotman, the Westminster system and post-colonial stupidities, March 1, 2012) and expressed the opinion that the Speaker cannot be neutral given the concretisation of dictatorship in Guyana’s body politic and the use of Parliament to maintain that autocracy.
The Speaker’s role becomes one of democratisation.
Thirdly, we saw another strange expression from Speaker Trotman. He is quoted in the press as saying that “the business of the House has been reduced to squabbling for every minute detail.” In this perception he has been unfair to the combined opposition. Efforts to roll back fifteen years of parliamentary abuse and the decapitation of democracy in Guyana have been interpreted by the Speaker as squabbling on every detail. Where does that leave the struggle for democratic reform? Who is squabbling for what and for what purpose?
Speaker Trotman cannot be so myopic not to know that the disunities, divisions and constant squabbling are part of a rampart built by the Executive to continue its hegemony over the Legislature.
The reconfiguration of the Assembly after the last general elections is not a political equation that the PPP Government is going to accept. Mr. Trotman has to know this. When he was on the campaign trail he saw the pleas in the eyes on those that listened to him.
They want a free Guyana. Can we expect another squabbling accusation from Speaker Trotman when Parliament moves to change the composition of state boards including the Council of the University, the freeing up of media licences, the re-structuring of GECOM among other things that the Guyanese people want?
Sadly, Mr. Trotman has unwittingly allowed the squabbling to continue with his weak ruling that the Assembly should be recessed for the opposition to tack on the amendments to their motions. He had the power to allow the debate to continue and the amendments could have been done after the vote because inherent in the motions, were the amendments.
He refused to use his power in the interest of the Guyanese people.
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