HEAD of the Presidential Secretariat and Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon, said that the Opposition’s argument that the President’s call for a restoration of parliamentary normalcy is cowardly is patently idiotic and disingenuous. 

Speaking on a television programme on TVG 28, the HPS said that while prorogation is temporary, the No-Confidence Motion is permanent and involuntarily removes and denies all possibility of any kind of democratic representation of the people in Parliament, simply because there will be no Parliament.
He said that the Opposition is sadly mistaken if they see prorogation and a willingness to work in the 10th Parliament as a weakness. This he said shows foresight and is a clear demonstration of the PPP/C Administration saying that it is unafraid of putting its political future and its 60-plus years of political acumen at the service of the Guyanese people.
“This is saying that as long as options exist to find solutions, we will exploit them…the outstanding issues that we have to address do not warrant the perfunctory treatment of a no confidence motion… for politicians, the door is never closed until it is closed,” he said.
He said that the Opposition’s willingness to abandon parliamentary normalcy instead of wanting to work with the Government to address issues such as Anti-Money Laundering, Telecommunications and Education Bills, all of which tremendously impact on the lives of Guyanese citizens, really calls into question their motives.
He expressed the hope that within the next 48 hours, caution will be cultivated and saner heads will prevail as political Parties put national interest ahead of partisan agenda.
The Cabinet Secretary admitted that though a minority Government is a novelty in Guyana, some progress has been made in the 10th Parliament and a resort to the polls will essentially forego all that has been achieved so far.
“This is not the time; there are issues which we have to take to finality. This 10th Parliament that ends in 2016 is the forum where these matters have to be pronounced on definitively…politics is the art of making the impossible possible… positions that we have heard pronounced on in the public and elsewhere can all be subjected to varying degrees of subsequent compromise,” the HPS emphasised.
He recognised that while the ideal for the President and for many right-thinking Guyanese is for the 10th Parliament to reconvene post-recess and finding common grounds to advance the parliamentary agenda, there are those who are ready to pull the plug, discard any possibility of compromise, leaving important things hanging in the balance.
“How do we know that in the 11th Parliament we are not going to be faced with a similar situation? The notion that we can banish our issues to the 11th parliament is untenable… I am insisting that we have not exhausted all that can possibly be brought to play on the resolution of what continues to divide us in Parliament. We are not going to solve that by walking away,” Dr. Luncheon maintained.
Nevertheless, if this cannot be done, then the President has options that are embedded in the Constitution; he could choose to prorogue the Parliament. Prorogation says to the Parliament and the people of Guyana that the body politic can rise to the occasion, confront its issues and arrive at workable solutions.
The HPS said that what the No-Confidence Motion has provoked in the National Assembly and the country is a certain amount of polarisation.
He explained that political Parties have to face each other and make the kind of compromises that will allow for solutions to be arrived at and this cannot be done through a No-Confidence Motion, but rather it calls for time.
“During the time of prorogation, I see a heightened attempt at making the kinds of compromises that characterise the political class, and that is the hallmark of politics and political activities. This cannot be done on Monday; it hasn’t been achieved since the President took over in November 2011. Prorogation offers additional time for the deliberation and conclusion of issues through engagement of the representatives of the people…election is about political polarisation and extremism,” Dr. Luncheon reiterated.
Prorogation is a presidential discretion that allows for dialogue. It cannot exceed a period of six months. If it is successful, then the President will make another proclamation to reconvene Parliament. However, if the objectives are not met, then the President’s second constitutional option of dissolving Parliament would come into play.
Importantly, the dissolution of Parliament will jeopardise the holding of local government elections in the second quarter of next year as was announced by the President.
Dr. Luncheon cautioned that, “if we are confronted with general election and local government elections in an overlapping time frame, the one that stands down will not be general elections.” (GINA)