Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday plans to meet with his Chief Whip Dr Hamza Rafeeq Monday to discuss an apparent confusion in party directives that may have led three MPs to vote with the government on a bill while the rest of the caucus abstained.On Friday Jack Warner, Ramesh Maharaj and Winston Peters voted with the government in support of the Emergency Ambulance Services Medical Personnel Bill.
The three "dissidents" said in a media release that Rafeeq advised that the opposition, which had supported the bill during the debate, would vote "yes".
However, when the vote was taken the rest of the caucus did not vote.
That created the impression that the three "dissident" MPs disobeyed a party directive, which is a serious offence that could lead to expulsion from the United National Congress (UNC).
Read the story: RAMJACK trio vote with gov't to pass ambulance bill
Panday told the media Sunday he wants to hear from Rafeeq about whether he did in fact instruct the MPs to support the bill. “It should be discussed”, Panday told Newsday.
The paper quotes Peters as saying that Rafeeq "came to us before the vote, about two minutes before and said they are voting yes.”
The week before Warner gave the PNM a critical vote it needed to pass a securities bill that the UN had supported during debate. He was the only opposition member to support the bill while his colleagues abstained.
That led Panday to accuse Warner of being a PNM "agent" and led to Warner being hauled before a UNC disciplinary committee, which could recommened Warner's expulsion from the party.
Read the story: UNC puts Warner before disciplinary committee
The paper quoted Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar as saying “in principle we supported the Bill but there were amendments proposed by our team.” She said several UNC amendments were rejected and "on the basis of that we abstained.” She is not sure what Rafeeq told Warner, Maharaj and Peters.
The bill would have passed without opposition support because of the strong government majority.
On another matter the three MPs have signed the party's letter asking the Speaker of the House of Representatives to establish a tribunal to investigate President Max Richards. It means the opposition request has the required number of signatures - one third of the number of seats on the House - for the Speaker to act.
The UNC is demanding the probe because it claims the president should be fired for bringing his office into disrepute over the Integrity Commission scandal.
Read the story: Opposition wants Parliamentary tribunal to investigate president
1 comment:
This is a very interesting story indeed. Its difficult to say without knowing the nuances of the bill how significant the ammendments ignored by the government would have been to the bill. That the bill would have passed without opposition support suggests that the three MPs were trying to communicate a message of sorts.
Its important to separate 'politricks' from politics here too. If the amendments were not vital, withholding support can be viewed as a method of attacking the government over a bill that is actually in the public interest. In contrast, one could make the case that supporting a bill that is in the public interest is an independently good thing, and ought to be done. In principle, legislatures are individuals elected to the House and ought to form alliances with like-minded people (parties) to best advance the interests and values of the people they represent. Sometimes that means supporting a government that you disagree with in principle. When you DO disagree, it lends greater credibility to that disagreement if you don't have a pattern of disagreeing for the sake of it. Still, the conventions of the parliamentary system are inherently adversarial, and it is unlikely that a party-less system would emerge anytime soon
Post a Comment