Troukler
PRESIDENT MICHEL DISSOLVES NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
The Electoral Commissioner went on SBC TV last Sunday and gave the impression that the National Assembly election will be held in mid-October. He sounded convincing but Mr Gappy also hinted that should the President decide to dissolve the National Assembly he will have no difficulty in organising elections in the districts. “All the logistics are in place to hold an election at short notice”, Mr. Gappy said. Last year Mr. Gappy tormented over the date for the Presidential election. This time around he sounded confident and at ease with the situation. Mr. Gappy must have known something we did not. In fact Mr. Gappy set the stage for the dissolution of the National Assembly by President Michel in his State of the Nation address. Mr Michel wanted the surprise element; he got it from the most unlikely source - the office of the Electoral Commissioner.
It did not come as a great surprise though. The ‘invisible man’ was telling everybody who wanted to listen at the ‘Pirates Arms’ that he had it from confidential sources that Michel would do away with the National Assembly. This, he said, would be done to prevent the leader of the opposition from replying to the State-of-the-Nation. Michel could not afford for the real State-of-the Nation to be laid bare by Wavel Ramkalawan. The devaluation issue - one of the broken promises from the last presidential election will be too much to hear Ramkalawan tear into. The price increases of all commodities in our shops is another factor Michel did not want spoken about. In fact there is a long list of complaints Michel could not bring himself to be reminded of by Ramkalawan. He took the easy way out and dissolved the National Assembly thus calling for early legislative elections.
In his address to the National Assembly on Tuesday, March 20th, 2007, President Michel in dissolving parliament, stated clearly live on TV that he wrote to the Speaker of the House, Francis MacGregor, on the 12th of March, 2007, giving notice of his intention to do so. However the Seychelles Nation the next day on Wednesday, 21st of March, 2007, ignored that fact completely. We reproduce here the exact reporting of the Seychelles Nation on that particular piece, “In accordance with article 110 of the Constitution of the