By Jolly Green

oday
the NDP brought a private members’ motion to Parliament. The motion
sort to re-establish public confidence in the electoral process to
deliver free and fair elections, which is vital to democracy and the
electoral system in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Some serious
irregularities have come to light over the years, most recently in
the 2015 general elections the conduct of which has shaken public
confidence.

Today in
Parliament [May 17, 2019], Speaker of the House, Jomo Thomas, was
made to look like a sniveling fool once more, by the mal-manipulation
of Parliamentary practice by prime minister dr ralph gonsalves. Most
Vincentians will remember how Thomas was fooled by gonsalves in 2018
when gonsalves convinced Thomas that he could take over a
no-confidence procedure in Parliament and turn it into a confidence
procedure. Thomas, therefore, disallowed debate on the no-confidence
motion. But allowed government members to amend the motion, changing
it into a motion of confidence. Government members then debated and
passed the motion in the absence of opposition members, who stayed
away in protest.

Following that,
Thomas over the next few days said that while out jogging it came to
him that he had made a mistake in accepting the gonsalves argument to
change the motion from no-confidence to one of confidence.

Unfortunately,
when the Speaker decides by way of a ruling it is non-reversible by
the speaker, his decision is final and unchallengeable. gonsalves
appeared to make an absolute fool of Thomas, and in doing so, threw
him under the bus. But did he, or was Thomas willing to go along
with gonsalves and use parliament on that day to stage a play, with
gonsalves and Thomas the star actors? I, for one, am willing to
consider a conspiracy theory in the matter. Because to wrongly allow
gonsalves to change a motion on a matter once may be a mistake, to
make the same mistake again is either an action of an idiot or
something naughty has gone down. Jomo Thomas should also know it’s
not what’s true or false; it’s a matter of perception by the
public.

What kind of a
person is gonsalves that he can come to Parliament and makeup stories
that undermine Parliamentary Democracy? Make arguments that when
examined are blatantly wrong, and gonsalves knew that at the time
that he presented the arguments? Can it be right that any
parliamentary representative, let alone the prime minister, can try
and convince parliament, the Vincentian people that wrong is right?
Surely, knowingly making misleading statements and arguing that wrong
is right must be a severe abuse of parliament.

This behavior
is a direct page out of the Maduro playbook in Venezuela.

The leader of
the ULP, who is also the prime minister of the Vincentian government,
is a communist. Jomo Thomas is a communist; the other ULP members
don’t know themselves what they are, some perhaps are latent
commies others are simply willing to sell their souls to these
scurrilous behavior patterns in parliament. The problem is, there is
always a joining at the hip with communists, regardless of if they
like each other or not, solidarity, supporting each other in whatever
way possible.

The
Constitution is ignored, and Democracy is damaged by not just that
but is damaged by the actions that we now see of misleading
parliament into accepting wrong in place of right. Jomo Thomas is
either stupid and uninformed, or he is acting in the way expected of
communists to follow the path of solidarity.

However, the
government has employed several manoeuvres’ to avoid the debate of
opposition motions in the past, including having government senators
table private motions.

Today in
Parliament was opposition day. Private members’ motions take
precedence during today’s meeting of Parliament – the third for
the year. The opposition can bring Parliament a Bill or motion for
debate and consideration without being directly countermanded of
parliamentary time taken away from them by the government side. But
gonsalves took over; he told the opposition that they had four hours
to discuss and debate the motion that the NDP brought to improve the
Representation of the People Act. gonsalves had already written out a
series of amendments that he had made to the motion wording. He
proposed presenting what he wanted to be inserted but refused to say
what he was going to want to be removed. He implied he would not tell
them what he wanted to be taken out until they agreed to what he
wanted to be put in. The opposition refused, and gonsalves said then
there is no deal. During this time, Thomas did his best to support
gonsalves, but he was also quite obviously out of his depth regarding
controlling the whole matter. Thomas appeared flustered at times and
seemed unsure of how to handle the matter. Perhaps he is a great
actor or is genuinely stupid, perhaps both.

I am not sure
that gonsalves had the right to make one-sided amendments to the
motion before it was debated. In the end, it became quite obvious
that all the arguments and banter was designed to use up the four
hours gonsalves had allowed, and the matter was timed out amid this
very nasty all-around procedure. Top and bottom of it all Jomo Thomas
let all this happen and did not take control properly of the
procedure. As I previously said, perhaps because he does not know or
is stupid, or even both. But the stink from the Chamber could be
smelt all over Kingstown.

Someone in the
government side expected trouble in the Chamber because extra police
were placed within the Chamber. Parliament security is run by the
Sergeant at Arm; the police should be out in the vestibule until
called, not in the Chamber as a clear threat to the NDP. They
man-handled and beat up the NDP MP’s once before and caused The
Honourable Daniel Cummins to have major surgery on his back. He still
has not fully recovered, and it’s possible he never will.

The proposed
changes to the Representation of the Peoples Act were designed by the
NDP to curb vote cheating; perhaps it was that which the ULP could
not deal with, maybe it cuts against the grain.

“There is no
more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of
incompetent, corrupt, or vile men.” Ludwig
von Mises.

“Democracy must be built through open societies that share information. When there is information, there is enlightenment. When there is debate, there are solutions. When there is no sharing of power, no rule of law, no accountability, there is abuse, corruption, subjugation, and indignation.” Atifete Jahjaga

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