Jagdeo’s ‘harangue’ failed to fall on fertile ears – PM Nagamootoo

WHEN Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo finished his budget presentation yesterday, just before midnight, he, along with the Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) walked out of the National Assembly, although both Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and Finance Minister Winston Jordan were left to speak. But even the absence of the Opposition did not prevent the Prime Minister from weighing into the Opposition Leader, who served as President from 1999 to 2011.
Moving right into the Opposition Leader’s speech, Nagamootoo expressed disappointment in the “pomposity, arrogance, and above all, the love of power” that the former President, now Opposition Leader, brought in his rhetoric which lasted one hour and 40 minutes.
“He tried, in a very bigoted way, to lecture to the House and to the Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan, who wrote his speeches for many years, and to lecture someone like me, Moses Nagamootoo, who was writing his speeches when he was President,” Nagamootoo said.
Nagamootoo told the House during his budget presentation after midnight this morning that Mr Jagdeo had come to the debates with a mission, “to buse down, and cuss down.”
The PM was convinced, however, that Jagdeo’s “harangue had failed to fall on fertile ears,” even in the just concluded elections campaign.
“The fact is that he is in the Opposition and we are in the Government. The fact is that he is the Opposition Leader, and I am the Prime Minister,” Nagamootoo said to the sound of his colleagues banging desks.
Nagamootoo said it is undeniable that the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) had won the 2011 general elections, since both parties, then in Opposition, had a combined majority.
He said however that because of Guyana’s constitutional arrangements, the PPP/C held the Government. “We won the elections but we lost the Government. They had 32 seats and we had 33 seats on that side, but because of the present constitutional arrangement, it was conceivable that a minority could masquerade as a majority.”