Renu­ka Singh

The Pri­vate Mo­tion to ex­am­ine the “un­par­lia­men­tary con­duct of the Op­po­si­tion,” brought by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira, brought a som­bre re­sponse from Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sen­a­tor Jear­lean John.

Back in No­vem­ber, Vieira filed the mo­tion to look at the be­hav­iour of the Op­po­si­tion dur­ing the Elec­toral Col­lege vote to re­move Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes.

Vieira con­tend­ed that the Op­po­si­tion act­ed poor­ly from beat­ing ta­bles to shout­ing over the House Speak­er and claim­ing that their mi­cro­phones were be­ing si­lenced.

John quot­ed lib­er­al­ly from pre­vi­ous press re­ports and said that Vieira had a right to lodge his com­plaints, just like the UNC.

“This Sen­a­tor has a right to boo, to say Sen­a­tor John you talk­ing fool­ish­ness,” she said.

She said that in a democ­ra­cy, peo­ple have the right to dis­agree.

“For all its flaws, in this coun­try, we have em­braced a sys­tem of democ­ra­cy where it can cer­tain­ly be a messy one and that messi­ness is our strength. It is what makes us spe­cial. It is not easy,” she said.

She said that demon­stra­tions and strong dif­fer­ing views were the hall­marks of that democ­ra­cy.

But while John of­fered a som­bre pre­sen­ta­tion, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Hazel Thomp­son-Ahye was much more fired up.

“We know about Machel Mon­day, Kes Tues­day, Iw­er Wednes­day, Fan­tas­tic Fri­day but un­til Oc­to­ber 21 we knew noth­ing of ‘thun­der Thurs­day’,” she said, ref­er­enc­ing the var­i­ous fetes in the lead up to Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day.

“Thun­der Thurs­day was when Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors among oth­ers en­gaged in bois­ter­ous be­hav­iour and sought to make mas in the hal­lowed halls of Par­lia­ment,” she said.

She hint­ed at the pop­u­lar Anselm Dou­glas song “who let the dogs out” but said she would re­frain be­cause she did not want to be out of or­der.

“They at­tempt­ed to un­leash a reign of ter­ror on es­pe­cial­ly the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors gath­ered in the Par­lia­ment cham­ber,” she said.

Thomp­son-Ahye said the Op­po­si­tion “spewed ven­om” who al­so sought to bring the Speak­er of the House in­to “dis­grace”.

“Thun­der Thurs­day was an oc­ca­sion for the Speak­er to show grace un­der pres­sure. It pre­sent­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to show the na­tion that un­der our Par­lia­ment there are of­fi­cials, such as the clerk of the house who per­form to the high­est stan­dard of con­duct,” she said.

She said that Vieira’s mo­tion was about eth­i­cal stan­dards and con­duct in the Par­lia­ment and apol­o­gised to John for dis­agree­ing with her.

“It is not about ro­bust pol­i­tics, there is no doubt that Sen­a­tors have a du­ty to up­hold the dig­ni­ty, dis­ci­pline and deco­rum of par­lia­ment,” she said.

Dur­ing that de­bate last year, the Op­po­si­tion took um­brage to the pres­ence of all in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, say­ing then that they could not be count­ed on to be tru­ly in­de­pen­dents they were all ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent.

The Op­po­si­tion specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Charisse Seep­er­sad who is the sis­ter of for­mer Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad.

It was Seep­er­sad’s (Bliss) work at the PSC and an al­leged meet­ing with a Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial at the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent that trig­gered the Op­po­si­tion’s mo­tion against the Pres­i­dent.

The Op­po­si­tion cried “shame” while the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors spoke and Thomp­son-Ahye said they “in­sult­ed” the in­de­pen­dent bench.

“To ac­cuse In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors of singing for their sup­per was to in­put false and im­prop­er mo­tives and cast neg­a­tive re­flec­tions on the char­ac­ter and im­par­tial­i­ty of the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors. Noth­ing else,” she said.