Accusing Prime Minister Perry Christie of suffering from “a terrible lapse of memory” as it relates to PLP boycotts of past openings of parliament, former prime minister Hubert Ingraham yesterday hit back at comments the nation’s leader made in the House of Assembly on Wednesday.
Mr. Christie had slammed Mr. Ingraham and FNM Deputy Leader Brent Symonette for failing to show up for the Opening of Parliament and he termed their absence a “scandalous experience”, while suggesting that it was a threat to democracy.
The prime minister asked in the House of Assembly following the reading of the Speech from The Throne, “Where is the greater threat to parliamentary democracy when on the prorogation and the summoning of a new parliament, the person who represents himself to be the alternative prime minister does not appear? His deputy does not appear and they have not provided notice or excuse to the parliament or the speaker.”
However, Mr. Ingraham told reporters at a press conference at the FNM headquarters on Mackey Street yesterday that there is no parliamentary rule that says an MP has to give notice of his or her absence to the speaker of the House.
“What is worse, the leader of the governing party, spewing misinformation, sought to attribute to me and my deputy, political shenanigans the likes of which is typical of his party’s conduct,” the former prime minister said.
He was referring to Prime Minister Christie’s comment that he knew the true reason why Mr. Ingraham and his deputy were absent from the Opening of Parliament.
On Wednesday, the prime minister said, “Mr. Speaker, I happen to have had certain advice as to what the parliamentary appointment is or what the appointment that they’ve gone to or he is attending.”
Mr. Ingraham said, “The ridiculous untruthful statements uttered in connection with my absence from the island on Wednesday would amuse me if they were not so revealing of the complete lack of understanding by the governing party of our parliamentary system of government.”
The former prime minister insisted that Mr. Christie had been pressed to create a sensational press headline to distract attention from his government’s “dismal performance in office and from its continued practice of over-promise as revealed in the Speech from the Throne.”
The FNM leader also commented on Mr. Christie’s comment that he had never witnessed such an absence from a leader.
The prime minister on Wednesday said, “I was appointed to the Senate in 1974 and became a Member of Parliament in 1977 and I have not witnessed such an experience from a leader in a country of this kind in our entire history of parliamentary democracy. I have not read about it; I have not heard about it and I have not seen it.”
Striking back yesterday, Mr. Ingraham said, “He may not have read about it; he may not have heard about it, but he was part of it, on more than one occasion.”
The former prime minister added, “How poorly the prime minister’s memory serves him. He certainly appears to have forgotten that twice, in 1992 and again in 1993, the entire opposition bench, including his good self and his then leader, Sir Lynden, absented themselves in what they termed a boycott from the reading of the Speech from the Throne at the Opening of Parliament under an FNM administration.”
Addressing a room filled with FNM supporters, party executives and parliamentary colleagues, Mr. Ingraham held up a copy of an article published in the Nassau Guardian on August 16, 1993 in which Mr. Christie and Dr. Nottage announced that the Official Opposition intended to boycott the Opening of Parliament.
Mr. Ingraham said, “Twice, 1992 and 1993, the now governing party described their absence from the Opening of Parliament in the press and at party rallies as boycotts. Now the prime minister would have us believe that he has never witnessed, heard or read about any leader of the opposition not being present for the reading of the Speech from the Throne at the opening of a new session of parliament.”
He asked, “In what dream world does the prime minister exist? I recommend that in the future he might exercise his memory and ensure that his brain is in gear before he speaks.”
In his own defense, Mr. Ingraham said that his absence was not a protest nor was it a boycott of any kind.
“My absence, as I have already relayed to the press, was solely the result of previously scheduled medical tests and evaluations at the Cleveland Clinic in Fort Lauderdale which I have already been forced to postpone once due to pressing business and which I was reluctant, indeed unwilling, to postpone again,” the FNM leader explained.
As for Mr. Symonette’s absence from parliament, Mr. Ingraham said that the deputy leader had informed him of travel plans, but he said he had not had any communication with Mr. Symonette since last week.
Mr. Ingraham said that the governing party chose not to observe democratic norms and instead determined in secret when the House would be prorogued and when the new session would open.
“The governing party does not understand or practice these basic democratic principles,” the former prime minister said.
“That is why they could see fit to prorogue parliament on the 31st of January with no prior notice to the opposition and leave some 60 questions, with as many as 200 subparts, put to the government by members of the opposition, unanswered. In a functioning democracy a government answers questions put to it by the opposition.”
He explained that the absence of consultation prior to prorogation resulted in opposition members finding themselves unable to rearrange their schedules to accommodate the new session opening.
Mr. Ingraham said he plans to thank the governor general for reading the Speech from the Throne. That is expected to come in the House of Assembly. Debate on the speech starts on Wednesday.
He also intends to state his views on “the governing party’s busy legislative agenda”.
Mr. Ingraham said with such an extensive agenda, he anticipates that the government would spend many more hours in parliament in the new session than it spent in its first three and a half years in office.
By: Bianca Symonette, The Bahama Journal
