…towards Parliament
Your Eyewitness has repeatedly emphasised that democracy doesn’t depend only on what’s written in constitutions and statutes. Even more important is the attitude of those who vie for office, to represent the will of the people towards the customs and traditions that provide the scaffolding on which the law resides. For democracy to be practised effectively, the politicians must read between the lines as much as what are on the lines. The PNC have never learnt this lesson – starting from their founder leader, the cynical and Machiavellian Forbes Burnham.
Take, for instance, the shameful insults that are being hurled at the Speaker of our Parliament by PNC MPs. Do these people have any idea of the position in which the Speaker is held in parliamentary democracies? Even Burnham never breached the protocols towards this figure in all the shenanigans he pulled to remain in office illegally. There’s a famous instance when, even in walking out of a sitting of the House in protest, he paused on his way out to genuflect to the Speaker!!
Not this lot! No, they’re filled to the brim with the hubris and authoritarian instincts of that Sanctimonious Gangster who’s their present leader. The Speaker must be seen as above the fray, and his rulings must be explicitly obeyed. He’s the symbol of the sanctity of “we the people”, in whom sovereignty lies and to whom the greatest respect must therefore be given. Imagine the temerity of one cowardly MP, appropriately known as “Lampy”, who’d stoop so low as to insist that the Speaker’s bout with COVID-19 was somehow something the Speaker brought upon himself for his stance in the House! And which he, the MP, could crow about! What next? Are they going to drag him from his seat to literally tar and feather him?
They should be reminded of a famous incident that epitomises the standing of Speakers in Parliamentary governments. Back in 1642, King Charles 1 (who was later to be beheaded!) was looking for five MPs to charge them with High Treason. He ventured into Parliament and asked the Speaker as to their whereabouts. Which gave the Speaker the opportunity to utter the immortal words that have guided all Speakers since: “May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here.”
But lest some think the authoritarian arrogance of the PNC MP Lampy was an aberration, we were just told that the PNC plan to convene their own “Parliament”, literally in the den of inequity in front of the Stabroek Market.
This shows how little the authoritarian mind thinks of democracy!
…from Maduro
A lot of news outlets highlighted that it was Maduro who personally ordered our twelve fishermen and their boats be released and returned to Guyana. Some implied that we – and the rest of the world – should be thankful for this “gesture”. But they miss the entire point! If a President can unilaterally make such a decision, all that does is confirm that he has no checks and balances in his governance structure. In other words, he’s a dictator!!
And that’s exactly what we’ve been emphasising after Maduro rigged the last elections to seize control of his National Assembly, after already subverting the judiciary. What this also confirms is that if Maduro could unilaterally free our men, it was he who had unilaterally ordered their seizure! So, any thought of dealing with a “beneficent” Maduro should be banished by our Government.
Let’s remember that this latest act of hostility is only the latest in the tradition of Venezuelan governments of all stripes since the 1950s.
And it’ll continue!
…from the PNC
The PNC’s insistence to put a cat (Patterson) to guard the (national) milk betrays their authoritarian instincts. They say he must first be proven guilty. For what?
He already ADMITTED he lied about receiving the bling!
