Very unparliamentary

GUYANESE look to their National Assembly for inspiring leadership, for role models, for national leaders to espouse views and inspiring rhetoric that causes the nation to tackle the task of development with optimism, positive energy, and camaraderie. In the hallowed chambers of Parliament, Guyanese should witness the real exemplary living out of the national ethos, co-operation, as the world’s only Co-operative Republic. Whoever set the tone for Budget Debate 2021, seemed to have caused other Members of Parliament to plunge into a sort of reactive mode, adopting the same tone of harsh, plosive, quarrelsome rhythm to make their point.

Across this country, and throughout the diaspora community worldwide, on social media, Guyanese witnessed their Parliament become mostly a place of uninspiring scapegoating, with each side blaming the other for all sorts of political stuff, instead of focusing on the way forward for Guyana.
The Opposition cannot escape blame for their approach to their role in the National Assembly, with a seeming deliberate strategy of aggressive, confrontational, non-cooperating spirit in their conduct within the House, although some of the members from the ruling party also engaged in unwarranted parliamentary rhetoric. Guyanese expressed dismay at what the Budget Debate turned into.

Indeed, citizens had good reason, after watching their Parliament descend to a quarrelsome atmosphere, to be disappointed, because the entire country welcomed the 2021 Budget as a progressive blueprint to ramp up the socio-economic prosperity of the nation, especially with GDP projected to increase exponentially. When Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, presented the Budget, everybody across the country applauded the business-friendly and social welfare measures, especially the lack of new taxes. Citizens were looking forward to a great debate in Parliament, hoping for their political leaders to be engaging in a national conversation around the Budget measures, with expectations that the tone of this Parliamentary confab would further lift the spirits of Guyanese everywhere.

The country had just got used to the tone of President Ali and Prime Minister Mark Phillips and other senior members of the government urging the nation to come together, to forget divisions, to co-operate and act with, in the words of President Ali, oneness and unity, to advance this country’s bright, miraculous future. Guyana, as the senior government leaders made a point of assuring the nation, stands at the doorstep of its greatest advance ever, and every Guyanese must benefit, and every Guyanese ought to roll up their sleeves and play a positive role, and every Guyanese should play for that oneness, co-operation, and national unity.

It is with sadness that the nation watches how the Opposition approaches this idea, seeming to disdain any effort to see themselves as partners in the development process, to come alongside the freely and fairly elected government to make Guyana a proud and tall nation on the world stage. It is even more sad that some government leaders in the House allowed the Opposition tone of divisive plosive words to cause them to react in kind, and to descend to verbal lashing out at the uninspiring Opposition.

The entire country knows that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) is the political institution that advances Guyana’s socio-economic well-being and goodwill, since the birth of the nation. The entire Guyanese society knows that the People’s National Congress (PNC) regime for 28 years rigged elections and suffered Guyana through excruciating economic disaster. And the entire nation knows that the Coalition made a stupendous mess in their five years at the helm of the country, leaving a macroeconomic situation that was in tatters last year, and leaving a legacy of damage to the democratic integrity of the nation.

One would think that the government members would spend their time talking to the nation and addressing Guyanese from the Assembly floor, with a keen sense of stirring in the hearts of citizens a sense of the realness of the new direction of the country, and inculcating the vision of the President Ali administration, and extolling the positive new atmosphere that the oil and gas sector is making possible, and explaining the unique stance of Guyana in the world community as an oil and gas producer, and a preserver of the natural environment.
Guyanese expected every Member of Parliament to paint for them the future of their country, not stoop to scapegoating, political rants and quarrels, and to inject a tone on the national stage of harsh, plosive, heavy rhetoric rubbing raw on the ears of Guyanese.

This country is on a new path, and the government is implementing a new vision, and the future prosperity of Guyanese is a real one, not a fantasy. As much as one needs to set the record straight and not allow misrepresentations of history, for example, not allowing a Member of Parliament to mislead the nation on the national debt, as Juretha Fernandes tried to do by claiming that Guyana’s debt would skyrocket as the worst ever, only to be corrected by Minister of Sport, Youth and Culture, Charles Ramson, that the debt is only 8.7 per cent of GDP, the forum of the floor and podium of the National Assembly is a sacred one. This is a spotlight from which every national leader would want to speak to the nation from with a deep sense of responsibility, of leadership, of being a role model and a person of enormous influence and impact on the heart and mind of Guyanese.

It would be pertinent to this country moving forward into making real the vision of President Ali, were Members of Parliament to be sensitised to their role on the national stage, as not merely administrations and elected members of Parliament, but as leaders to whom Guyanese look up to for real substance, for inspiration, and for motivation to tackle the road ahead.
Public discourses are important to the national well-being, goodwill, and the psyche of the citizenry, and so it is crucial to be conscious of the fact that now Guyana has matured and become sophisticated enough for leaders to carefully craft their speeches, their posture on the national platform, and their postulations and pronouncements to the Guyanese nation. Indeed, it is a way of taking care of the soul of the people, to cause them to feel uplifted, motivated, and inspired.

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