TO FOLLOW some recurring developments in Guyana, one could well come to the conclusion that the official Christmas season is being preceded here with a hilarious period of political jokes. Except, of course, that the Guyanese people themselves cannot really be amused when the nation’s highest forum, Parliament, is at the centre of most of the jokey occurrences, and with Speaker Raphael Trotman himself being a lead actor.

The Speaker is being enabled by a cast drawn from among opposition parliamentarians, and in particular the leading personalities of the APNU and AFC, obsessed in making fun at Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, placed  in a ‘dock’ of their own creation.

The apparent assumption is that they, as parliamentarians, have a “right” to SANCTION Rohee. Read this to mean denying him the right to speak in the National Assembly and present ANY motion or legislation as Minister of Home Affairs.

The reason? That’s the rub. Nothing convinces even Rohee’s detractors.

What’s certainly NOT amusing is the utter contempt being displayed by the Opposition in the process of their pre-Christmas political fun at Rohee’s expense, by simply failing to offer ANY EVIDENCE of relevance in support of recurring accusations of wrong doings.
Their anti-Rohee crusade seems more driven by hate politics than any semblance of respect for established parliamentary rules and norms of behaviour.

Hope evaporates
There was, for a brief period, the glimmer of hope for political maturity — sheer reasonableness in the conduct of the business of Parliament — when Speaker Trotman sought, obtained and disclosed to a sitting of the National Assembly the legal opinion from a highly respected law firm that there was NO constitutional basis for the Opposition move to, in effect, gag Minister Rohee and debar him from functioning as a duly appointed cabinet minister.

Sadly, the applause for the course pursued by the Speaker was to soon evaporate amid new tactics by a combined APNU/AFC opposition seemingly bent on misusing a majority of ONE vote in the 65-member Assembly that had resulted in the passing of a “no confidence” motion against Minister Rohee.

However, the pro-Speaker applause were to subsequently disappear amid fresh manoeuvres and shoutings from across the Opposition benches, led by APNU/PNC leader, Granger, and including the AFC’s leader Khemraj Ramjattan.

Now, last Thursday, having much earlier FAILED to provide EVIDENCE of claimed culpability on the part of the Home Affairs Minister in the Linden shooting tragedies of last July 18—the excuse they had previously advanced for their “no confidence” motion — the Opposition moved to have Rohee sent to the Assembly’s Privileges Committee.
And, most surprisingly, by a tangled web of self-serving arguments, the Speaker obliged the passing of the Granger-initiated anti-Rohee motion. Trotman was still on the defensive, rationalising his decision, when Attorney General Anil Nandall came forward with his counter argument to claim that it was a surprising and clumsy display of partisan political behaviour by the Speaker.

Where from here?
So, where does the Government and Opposition go from here, given the harsh reality that a democratically elected administration, headed by an Executive President who is part and parcel of the parliamentary process of governance, cannot allow likely continuation of political manoeuvres by opposition parliamentarians, moving with support from the Speaker to misuse a one-vote majority in making a farce of governance?

This coming Wednesday will be exactly one year since the November 28, 2011 national elections. But the signs are certainly not encouraging for political maturity based on structured tripartite consultations among the parliamentary parties — PPPC/APNU and AFC— presided over by President Ramotar.

The recurring displays of political rancor, worse, the strategies and tactics of the opposition, which embrace summoning the sort of political recklessness witnessed in Linden and subsequently Agricola Village, and with continuing hostility directed at ranks of the Guyana Police Force, all seem to point to the inevitability of a snap general election, however distasteful this may be.

Speaker Trotman, has more than once, signalled a willingness to vacate office. We await the final outcome of the current development that brought a speedy adjournment of last Thursday’s sitting of Parliament until December 16. That may well be the last sitting before Christmas, and prior to presentation of the 2013 national budget.

To the squeaky threat of a “no confidence” motion from the AFC leader Ramjattan came an instant response from the government benches to “bring it on…” A no-confidence motion could well trigger a snap poll that must occur within three months.

So, is the Guyanese electorate really heading into fresh elections early in 2013?  There are many related questions, but these can be addressed later.

For instance, will the PNCR, which allowed itself to become immersed in APNU that was led by Granger for last November elections, and who has since become leader also of the PNCR, again sink its identity and officially stay out of electoral politics?

So far as the AFC is concerned, currently troubled by its own internal leadership challenges, does it really believe it could seriously face the electorate on the socio-political pretences separately unfolded in traditional strongholds of the PPP/C and PNCR?