…PM rebuffs Jagdeo’s call to push back confidence motion
…says no point “taking this deadweight motion into new year”

PRIME MINISTER Moses Nagamootoo believes that a call by Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, for a delay in the debating of the no-confidence motion against the government shows how aware the opposition is that they will not succeed
Notwithstanding a previous call by the opposition for their no-confidence motion before the National Assembly to be treated as an urgent matter and debated even before the budget was presented,Jagdeo on Monday, in an about-face move, appealed for the debate of the motion to be pushed back to next year January. “Jagdeo had been calling for the motion to be debated before the Budget. Now with the motion being imminent, he is seeking to delay. It can mean only one thing – that Jagdeo knows there is absolutely no chance of success. Let it be heard and let it be defeated. There is no point in taking this deadweight motion into the new year,” Nagamootoo declared.

“Jagdeo is acutely aware that the motion has no prospect of success, and it is an abuse of parliamentary time and waste of taxpayers’ money to convene a sitting of the National Assembly only to be told that he (Jagdeo) is not ready or prepared. As the mover of the motion, he would be better advised to withdraw the motion, not to defer its rejection.”
Debate on the no-confidence motion is scheduled to begin this Friday, December 21. Speaking at his weekly press briefing on Monday, Jagdeo used the Christmas season as the excuse as to why the opposition is eager to see the motion delayed. However, some observers believe that there is a more sinister plot afoot.

Jagdeo’s pronouncement comes just days after the Speaker of the House, Dr. Barton

Scotland, announced that he was leaving it up to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Constitutional Reform to come to a decision on the Opposition’s request that Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo vacate his seat in the National Assembly whenever he performs the functions of President. “We were hoping to have the no-confidence vote early. They brought it smack directly into the Christmas season when most of our people are focused on everything else and it could be disruptive and divisive in this period. So if this government wants to shift the no-confidence motion to the 3 January, we are willing to accept that, to push it past the Christmas,” Jagdeo said.

However, the Prime Minister noted that since May 2015, the Coalition Government has been working tirelessly to get rid of all “the mountain of literal and figurative garbage that we inherited from the Jagdeo-Ramotar era.” He said Jagdeo is now seeking “to lump this motion – which amounts to nothing more than a political bluff – onto the pile. Now that the real motive of this desperate act is being exposed, Jagdeo is seeking to back away but as we had called for before – BRING IT ON! We in the Coalition Government are ready and willing to defend our record.”

The Prime Minister added:”We know too that the Jagdeo-led opposition has caused the Guyanese people some distress and hurt by unconscionably attempting to exploit the illness of President David Granger to unseat me as Prime Minister. They then resisted the pro-people $300.7 Billion 2019 Budget. Both gambits failed to derail the parliament and government. The resort to a confidence motion, is the third in a tripod of destabilisation, and it is also doomed to failure. The correct and honourable thing for Jagdeo is not to postpone his defeat but to withdraw the motion.”
Exploiting

Shortly after saying that, Jagdeo registered his angst with Mr Scotland for not dealing with the issue of the PM vacating his seat. Despite the fact that the PM has been attending Parliament since 2015, in several instances even when the President has been abroad, the opposition only recently decided to begin pushing for the PM to be excluded from the National Assembly whenever performing duties of President, which is delegated to him whenever President David Granger is overseas.

It was on December 10 that Opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira officially wrote the Speaker about the PM being in the National Assembly while acting as president. This letter came just a few weeks after Jagdeo announced that a motion of no-confidence in the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Coalition Government had been filed with the National Assembly.

Moreover, the motion itself was suspiciously announced just days after it was announced that President Granger was suffering from Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, a type of cancer, and would require constant treatments abroad. The government enjoys a one-seat majority in the House, moreover, the Prime Minister is considered to be vital on the government’s side in the debate of the no-confidence motion.

Observers believe that the occurrence of all of these events in succession is no coincidence, and is all a part of a conscious plot by the opposition to heartlessly put pressure on the President during a most vulnerable time in his life. The Presiden, who only recently completed his second round of chemotherapy, is scheduled to make several other trips to Cuba between now and next year May for treatment. “We know too that the Jagdeo-led opposition has caused the Guyanese people some distress and hurt by unconscionably attempting to exploit the illness of President David Granger to unseat me as Prime Minister,” the PM noted.

In their argument against Nagamootoo not vacating his seat while performing the duties of President, Teixeira notes that in the 8th, 9th and 10th Parliaments in accordance with Articles 96 (1) and 178 (1) and (4) of the Constitution of Guyana, when then Prime Minister Samuel Hinds was carrying out “the functions of office of the President” who was overseas, he was not allowed to attend a sitting or a committee meeting of the National Assembly.

However, there is no record showing that he ever officially vacated his seat in the National Assembly during those periods, but rather simply did not attend Parliament which is not the same thing they are demanding of Mr Nagamootoo. Jagdeo said the opposition had not yet finalized on a proposed plan to take the issue before the courts. They were expected to deliberate on the issue Monday afternoon. As it pertains to the no-confidence motion, Jagdeo said the opposition is not yet certain how many speakers it would be putting forth to argue the motion.