The comedy of the National Assembly

From the sublime to the ridiculous

WHEN he called for early assembly elections, James Michel imparted that he wanted an assembly that was serious to help him 'fer fas ek sa ban defi ki pe vini'. SPPF had campaigned for a 25-0 rubber stamp return to the old ways of the one party state. But the people decided otherwise and preferred to maintain the status quo that had existed previously. This time round however, the opposition was given a different voice when a DP candidate was invited to take his seat in the 'house of the people'. However…not content on giving more voices to the people, they decided to muzzle these rising voices of dissent. They try to suppress those new ideas, banishing any form of freedom of expression (newspaper lawsuits, termination of printing agreements etc…) but still they cannot break the resolve of a determined group of 'Seselwa' who will no longer take things lying down.

The famous National Assembly seems to be sailing into the big blue yonder! It is anything but serious Mr. President! Now that the 'leader of the opposition' is discussing the affairs of state in a relaxed environment at State House, the vipers from the other 'People's House' have been unleashed. The recent debates (or non debate as in the first session the previous Tuesday) have been a major session of 'venom spitting' between the 'leader' of government business and the 'leader of the opposition'.

While he had the privilege to chat with the President on how he could help to turn things around for the SPPF, Wavel was handed a banana peel to try and convince the public that his remarks on TV had been misinterpreted. This time round, he agreed to participate in discussions with our economic planners. What transpired in these discussions was again used against him while he cries foul and being used as a scapegoat. The week before, an attempt at pushing the supplementary budget through, without much debate, did not come down well and this time round, the man had his moment of truth. As he went into his version, he coined the acronym JCWR to ram home his point to the 4th power!

In her reply to Ramkalawan's clarification on how we got into this mess of calling a supplementary budget after five months, Mrs. Potter (not to be confused with the magician Harry) climbed on her oratory pedestal with a firebrand attack 'made in Cuba'. Of course she wanted to impress her fellow Cubanite in the person of the Minister of Finance. As she demonstrated in her reply for the state of the nation (“Tuff, tuff, tuff!), Marylou gave another display of her command of the language by another 3-in-1  “Mansonz, mansonz, mansonz!” Brilliant… Now we're getting serious! To the point that it takes a couple of hooks and jibes to the head and JCWR is already 'lo tapi'! In her venomous explanation of her version of their famous tete a tete with the minister and Mr. Speaker, Potter turns the tables when she questions the complete tour or the 'mwatye tour'…! She tried to ridicule poor Wavel to the point that you would think that the guy suffers from multiple personalities disorder (his John, Charles, Wavel Ramkalawan came back to haunt him).

So what do we the people make out of this big circus in our library building in Victoria? Who's lying? Who's been framed? 'Akoz zot be lager saler?...While the people are asking them to address the issues that are causing our standard of living to deteriorate by the day, they fight over some thousand rupees. As we suffer the blows of price hikes, they take a recess and they are off to China! Mon oule en lasanble serye'!

So sorry (Hon) Ramkalawan, but this is exactly what you get when you rub shoulders with these guys! You should know better! You have now been lured into the SPPF web of deceit. Lies, lies and 'kalomni' will forever be tagged on you and we do hope that it is lesson learnt. Never play in the hands of the SPPF, they will tempt everyone with their money. This is a classic case of a corrupt system that you have sworn to eliminate 'lo sa later Sesel'.

Sanmem sa ki nou apel en lasanble serye?? Ale Sesel!

June 20, 2008
Copyright 2007: Seychelles Weekly, Victoria, Mahe, Seychelles