NATIONAL ASSEMBLY VOTES DOWN DISSOLUTION RESOLUTION
BUT VOTE BUYING CONTINUES
A motion to dissolve the National Assembly brought by the Leader of the Opposition, the SNP leader Wavel Ramkalawan, was voted down by a majority of members on Tuesday. All those who voted against were members from the SPPF, which has a majority in the chamber.
Observers expected the SPPF leadership to order a vote against the motion as it would have meant an election for a new National Assembly within 30 days – according to Article 79 (2) of the Constitution – hence spoiling the celebration to mark the 30th anniversary of independence. They were not disappointed. The celebration, which the SPPF leadership only recently decided to turn into a month long event to give their candidate extra television coverage before the Presidential election, is due to end on July 2 when campaigning is expected to kick off formally. President Michel, the official SPPF presidential candidate has been unofficially campaigning since he took office in April 2003.
The motion to dissolve the National Assembly came amid preparations by the SPPF leadership to parade, during their party congress held last week, a large number of prospective candidates for the next National Assembly elections due in November 2007. The resolution proposed by the SNP leader, publicly supported by the DP leader Paul Chow, stole the thunder from the SPPF which had planned to give a false impression to the public about their real intensions with the parading of the prospective candidates.
The image the SPPF leadership wanted to come out of their congress was that the party would have a new team to support Michel if he was elected - thus all the economic problems would be resolved. In effect, Mr Michel is banking on their good looks rather than their performance as true representatives of the people. The MNA, those the people of
Opposition MNA’s have shown the SPPF leadership to be political cowards by not accepting the challenge to have fresh National Assembly elections now rather than later with their so-called fresh team. Embarrassed by the whole affair, the SPPF leadership permitted only one of their members to speak during the debate, thus making a mockery of the whole process of people’s representation – as provided for by the Constitution. This was left to Patrick Herminie, who has the un-constitutional title of Leader of Government Business, to try to justify their rejection of the motion.
Herminie, in his usual style, spent 15 minutes concocting spurious arguments which contained many misrepresentation of the real intent of the constitution. He claimed, for example, that only the SPPF and the President can dissolve the Assembly. All decisions of the National Assembly are taken by votes. Whether a member votes for or against is counted as part of the collective decision. In fact Mr Michel cannot dissolve that Assembly. And that is due to the machination of his predecessor, Mr Rene, who tampered with our fundamental law for political expediency.
As for SPPF it is not a member Assembly. Under the Constitution members are deemed to have been elected in their own names. It’s only the fact that they have declared their allegiance to a political party that SPPF has any influence.
Meanwhile, the standard door to door campaign of the SPPF, generally done by their candidates and their minders has now been reduced to overt offering of money whether anyone asks for it or not. They offer a fridge, a cooker or a hi-fi without you asking. All you are required to do is come up with a pro-forma invoice issued by a shop and a cheque will be yours for collection whether one actually takes delivery of the goods or not they don’t care. The cheques contain two undecipherable signatures - one of which is believed to be that of the district administrator- and drawn on a mysterious account at the Seychelles Savings Bank – a State owned bank. This account, it is believed, belongs to the Ministry of Local Government, which employs the District Administrators. In 2002 they over-spent the budget by R36 million in the same fashion
Now the candidatures are offering to finance retaining walls or even replace the entire roof of your house. This money will come from the government budget too. In the 2002, which was the year of the last National Assembly elections, over-spending of the budget reached an all time high. The main headings where overspending was most prominent and their amounts were: a) President’s Office – R13million; b) Ministry of Defence – R15m; c) Ministry of Local Government – R36 million. These figures do not include hand outs from the Social Security Fund, which continues to be state secret and other agencies such as Senpa and DBS. The budget deficit, for the first four months of the year has already reached R 69 million.
The Presidential campaign of candidate James Michel is now in disarray and dispirited as fewer and fewer people are turning up for the drinking sessions held in all the social centres and party branches to meet JJ.