GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Supporters of the main opposition We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party Monday picketed Parliament calling on the Speaker, Manzoor Nadir, to set a date for the election of a leader of the opposition following the September 1 regional and general elections.
Supporters of the WIN partyDespite Parliament being convened on November 4, with all legislators being sworn in, there has not been a meeting of opposition legislators to decide on who should occupy the position of Leader of the Opposition in the 65-member National Assembly.
Monday picket the office of the Speaker over the delay to set up meeting to elect Opposition Leader
The WIN legislators and supporters are calling for their leader, Azruddin Mohamed, to be elected to the post after the party emerged as the one with the second highest number of seats following the elections, displacing the opposition coalition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) that had been in the position in the last parliament.
The WIN party has since written to Nadir on the issue, and has also threatened to take legal action if the meeting of the opposition legislators is not called within two weeks.
But Nadir has remained silent on the issue and has not indicated when he will call the meeting of the opposition legislators.
WIN general secretary and Member of Parliament, Odessa Primus, told reporters during the protest that “we have no information on when parliament will reconvene, we have no information on what is going on, and we have looked at when other opposition leaders were sworn in”.
She said that only when there is a factor affecting that process, the election of an opposition leader “usually goes ahead” and “to the best of our knowledge, there is nothing that is preventing, outside of the government’s victimization in terms of the swearing in of the Leader of the Opposition.
“The opposition forms part of the government, and so what we are doing right now is basically functioning as a dictatorship because whatever the government says, goes, and whatever the Government does goes”, Primus said.
She told reporters that the election of the Leader of the Opposition forms part of the democratic principles governing the country, and the Speaker should therefore set the date for the Leader of the Opposition to be elected.
“We have had the PPP (ruling People’s Progressive Party) in the past profess that they are standing up for democracy while they themselves today are the persons who are ensuring that the democratic process does not take place and we are in an unfortunate state and at this point we would like to call on all of Guyana, whether or not you supported us in the elections, this is about the democracy of our country, and so we all need to stand up on this”, she said.
Attorney Siand Dhurjon, said the WIN party is already drafting court proceedings to be filed against the Speaker.
“He has an obligation to facilitate the election of the Leader of the Opposition…We are not saying that the Leader of the Opposition has to be elected during a sitting. The Leader of the Opposition has to be elected during a meeting convened specifically among the non-government members of the National Assembly and it should be done as soon as possible.”
Dhurjon said that the “very Constitution contemplates that it be done as soon as possible”.
Last Friday, the APNU said that the Opposition Leader’s office is a Constitutional office and it ought to be filled, questioning the Speaker’s delay in convening a meeting of the opposition legislators.
