Opposition wants Executive to ask permission even if it wants to sneeze

(Stolen from the Guyana Times) Oppose and Depose During the elections campaign, the PPP talked about revisiting the tax system. So did the AFC and APNU. All of them specifically honed in on the VAT. You would think that no one would have been surprised when, in one of his first acts as president, Ramotar set up a three- man panel to review the tax system. But you would be wrong. Dead wrong.

The opposition seemed surprised. They are, in fact, livid. If Roopnarine is to be believed, they expected not only to be consulted on the move but to be sitting on the panel. And this is just what we feared – and predicted – when the president magnanimously signaled that he would hold “ consult” with the opposition. He should remember that this opposition refuse to accept that they are the opposition.

They like to carp and cant about “ the rule of law”. But they wouldn’t know the rule of law if it jumped up and bit them on their behinds. The highest law in the land is the Constitution. They may not like it – even though they created it and had an equal hand in revising it in 2001.

But it’s the law. And the law delivered the Presidency and the Executive to the PPP and Donald Ramotar. And control of the legislature to the opposition.

Yet the opposition keep trying to subvert that law.

They want the Executive to ask permission even if it wants to sneeze. The Executive is the branch of government that is supposed to present its plans and policies to the legislature. The legislature will then debate and vote on those plans and policies. But it is obvious that the opposition believe that their overall combined APNU/ AFC majority gives them the right to the Executive.

They do not want to wait their turn in the Parliament.

Expect every policy or initiative of the government to be obstructed.

As Raphael Trotman said when he was an official member of the PNC: the mission is to “ oppose and depose” the PPP government. Is it any different now that he and AFC have teamed up with his old conspirators in APNU?