–to move 10th Parliament forward

AFTER the proroguing of Parliament on Monday, Members of Parliament from A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance for Change (AFC) used the opportunity to have a meeting with Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr Raphael Trotman to discuss the issue. In his address to the gathering, Trotman noted that the proroguing of Parliament by the President was, in his opinion, “most undemocratic [and] most distasteful, because the difference between then and now is that then, it was done by the Mother Country; now it is being done by our own.”

HISTORICAL
Trotman said further: “Today is a most momentous day, because, however it goes, it will remain as a historical day for the citizens of Guyana.”
The prorogation of Parliament, he said, will present for Guyana a crucial transformation as Guyana’s democracy enters into a new orbit.
“We will no longer be seen as another parliament like others around us, but we will now join the ranks that have passed through fire and turmoil,” he said, adding:
“It will take us into a new direction, and whether we hurtle into a direction of certain destruction or of new beginnings depends on each and every one of us present here today.”
He noted also that those who have been given the opportunity of being a part of the “decision-making apparatus for our dear state of Guyana” will have a major task ahead of them.
Trotman told the gathering that the National Assembly remains ready, willing and able to discharge its mandate as the legislative arm of the two-tiered Parliament of the country.

THIRD-PARTY INTERVENTION
Asked what he thought was the best way forward, Trotman said the National Assembly was thinking about calling for a Third-Party intervention to assist them in sorting out the matter that is preventing them from progressing with the 10th Parliament.
He noted that in the past, the Commonwealth Secretariat, CARICOM and the United Nations had rendered assistance and he hoped for a repeat of this assistance by one of those organisations or any other international body.
Trotman added that the public ought to be worried because if there were major discrepancies during the last Parliament, now that it has been prorogued there could be greater worry about more discrepancies.