Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley yesterday summed up the Opposition’s behaviour during the Electoral College vote on a motion to remove the President in one word, “Disgraceful.”
Speaking during a media conference shortly after the motion was defeated in Parliament, Rowley called out the Opposition for their behaviour.
He said it was Kamla Persad-Bissessar who failed to properly detail the motion presented in the House and accused her of trying to “move the goalpost” during the motion.
“There are eight lawyers on that Opposition bench, you would have heard them today talking about a substantive motion and a substantive motion, and giving the impression that the Speaker was doing something wrong, playing the victim for the whole morning,” the PM said.
“What they were trying to do was to save face for the Opposition leader and the Opposition leader who is so incompetent but prepared to sacrifice the country, the Parliament and all of us in trying to save face,” he said.
Rowley said Persad-Bissessar was reading what someone wrote for her because he “refused to believe that a Senior Counsel” could have written what she read as a motion.
“She told the press that there would be this fire and brimstone debate, where all her 19 members would be debating and I am saying ‘debating where’? he said.
“The Constitution specifically says how you go about step by step, how you go about trying to impeach the President.”
The motion, he said, had to have full particulars.
“That means when she prepare the motion to go to the Speaker, she could have written 200 pages if she wished, she could have quoted every court case, she could have taken five hours but the motion that you out to the Speaker that is going to be put to the House as to whether a tribunal should be set up,” he said.
“And no amount of jumping up by the tall lady and the loud man could change the law,” Rowley added, possibly referring to St Augustine MP Khadija Ameen and Senator David Nakhid, who both interrupted the debate repeatedly yesterday.
“You saw them today jumping up and down to try to prevent the Parliament from proceeding along the lines of the Constitution.”
Rowley said Persad-Bissessar wrote a single page and then tried to expand on it.
“You are therefore confined to what you put to the Speaker,” he said.
He said Persad-Bissessar was calling for a debate when there was no provision for one.
“You then start to accuse the Speaker of beating you down and then you start to move the goalpost again,” the PM said.
He accused the Opposition of acting up in Parliament deliberately to goad the Speaker into throwing them out in order to end their own motion.
He said the vote to remove the President was defeated and said the proceedings should have been a motion of no-confidence in him and not the President, since it was his supposed actions at an alleged meeting with the former chairman of the Police Service Commission Bliss Seepersad that was under scrutiny.
“Something, something happened in President’s House which resulted in XYZ and that something is still speculation,” he said.
“The fact that the Opposition leader does not believe the President and in fact call the President a liar has nothing to do with the Prime Minister.”
He said Persad-Bissessar was conducting a “fishing expedition” and “since we could not get information to prove the allegations, let’s go to Parliament and impeach the President.”
He said Persad-Bissessar believed she could extract “kernels of truth.”
“In the last week or so, I have been warning this country that it was the intention of the Opposition to create as much mayhem, bacchanal, jhanjat and rah-rah in the national population for reasons best known to them.”
He said if anyone doubted what he said, then yesterday’s events was proof enough.
“The behaviour of Opposition members, particularly members of the Senate who form part of the Electoral College, have been nothing short of disgraceful and reprehensible,” he said, adding the root of all of this was the belief that the Government was acting the same way the Opposition acted when they were in power.