It seemed perfect carnival weather. Or weather ideal for cricket. Small wonder that early Tuesday morning, long before things got going at what has been operated for a long time more like a circus tent than the house where elected representatives are expected to conduct the people’s business, the revelers, the punters, the pundits, as well as regular residents were gathered in Constitution Park—the majority costumed in United Workers Party yellow.
Conceivably the lone statue in the park (Sir John Compton, right arm raised in the manner of Olympian legends Tommie Smith and John Carlos of the USA) offered further encouragement to those who grew up convinced the parliament building and its environs were UWP turf, in much the same way starry-eyed followers of the Labour Party consider consecrated ground the area at the front of the Castries market.
While the costumed chanters and dancers performed for the press video-cams and others bearing cell phones, somewhere inside the parliament building the gladiators prepared for the day’s games, including for the first time a resolution for a vote of no-confidence in Prime Minister Allen Chastanet—the result of which was as predictable as the location of the Saint Lucia sun at 6.30 in the morning. In all events, the action got underway close to two hours behind schedule, with the normally inviting countenance of Speaker Andy Daniel hidden behind a kind of kabuki mask of frowning belligerence.
The day’s prayer having been delivered by a gray-bearded presumed agent of god, the honorable men and ladies of parliament settled down in their leather chairs in anticipation of the day’s air-conditioned fixed fight. No sooner had the opposition leader presented his motion than a member on the government side challenged its constitutionality, on the basis it addressed only the prime minister and by his given name. The objector depended on Section 60 of the Saint Lucia Constitution that speaks only to motions of “no-confidence in the government.”
There was every reason to believe, judging by the Speaker’s demeanor, that this was not the first time a member on the government side had served him the particular objection to the motion before him. In any case he was ready to defend his decision that it would be debated regardless. Those who disagreed with his take on the House rules, so went the pundits in red, were free to hit the Speaker with an injunction.
He opened with a reminder that there had been a time when he was referred to, not as “Mr. Speaker, but as Your Worship.” Meaning, he once had been a court magistrate. “The Lady Justice was supposed to be blind,” he said. “She was not supposed to see anything. But the nature of the life we live, even though as a magistrate one was not supposed to know the evidence beforehand, you hear things because you’re human.” He didn’t leave his more attentive listeners time to decipher his somewhat cryptic message.
“I have my son here, somewhere in the gallery,” he revealed, “and I’ve said to him that biology dictates that you see not by light leaving your eye to the object but by light from the object coming into your eye. That’s how we see.” If the already confused now had more reason to rattle their mental marbles, he offered relief from their discomfort: “I say all of this because I’ve heard over the last two weeks or so, I’ve listened, I’ve ignored. And though some may say the role of the Speaker is this or that, I say to you that when I, Andy Daniel, sit in this chair as Speaker I mean to be fair to members of this honorable House.”
He seemed to change horses midstream. Arms folded on his chest, he leaned forward so that his elbows rested on the table immediately in front of him. “Now let’s get down to the substantive motion.” He addressed the parliamentary horsefly that had challenged the correctness of the opposition leader’s no-confidence motion and the Speaker’s accommodation of it: “Honorable member for Southeast Castries,” he said, in a tone atypically commanding. “Before and on the onset, I will give you my ruling and then my reason for it. There is nothing unconstitutional about this motion being in the name of the honorable prime minister, or in his office, or in any other minister or member sitting at this table. Reference is being made to various sections of the Constitution of this country, in particularly [sic] Section 60.6, with references also made to 54 and other sections of the Constitution.”
He paused to pick up some papers from his desk, then observed that the Constitution, under Section 53, states that subject to the provisions of the Constitution the Senate and the House may each regulate its own procedure and may in particular make rules for the proper conduct of its own proceedings. This authority, he suggested, “is best summarized in our Standing Orders. The authority to make our rules on any matter that we so choose.”
What! I can imagine no worse interpretation of a rule than Speaker Andy Daniel’s at Tuesday’s sitting. His predecessor Wilfred St. Clair Daniel must be turning over in his grave. What a fiasco, considering it was largely on the basis of that absolutely flawed interpretation by the Speaker that Tuesday’s debate was entertained. The point is: Section 53 of the Constitution does not give the speaker the authority “to make rules on any matter that we choose.”
What the cited section does is make room for the House to modify, from time to time, regular procedures not necessarily involving the Speaker. For example: House rules allow each MP an hour to speak during a debate. If a member should find himself or herself requiring more time to complete his or her contribution, the House rules provide for members to vote on the request. On the other hand, the prime minister and the leader of the opposition may agree in advance of a session that certain members will be allowed more than their regular time allotment, an agreement that the Speaker normally honors without hesitation. This by no means translates into Speaker Daniel’s “authority to make rules on any matter we choose.”
He turned to another document, from which he read: “Section 21 of our Standing Order says: ‘Subject to section 48 of the Constitution and to these Standing Orders any member may propose by way of motion any matter for debate in the House.’ ” It remains unclear to me what the Speaker intended to convey when he cited Section 21. To the best of my knowledge there was never a challenge to the right of “any member to propose any motion to this House.” Rather, the contention centered on whether it was legal to move a motion against the prime minister by name as opposed to a motion against the government as a whole.
Was this yet another example of the Speaker tripping over the roots of a tree he planted? He went on: “Let me go one step further. The idea that a single member on the government side should not be the subject of a motion of no confidence is wrong and our court, the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, has so ruled.” Why was it wrong? By what section of the House orders?
As the Speaker read from a recent court judgment, I was reminded of an earlier House session, prior to the 2016 general elections, when it seemed the Speaker of the House (a QC) sought to serve the Southeast Castries MP Guy Joseph a quick course on the subject of contract law, a gift that the MP unforgettably returned to sender—with the recommendation that the Speaker stick to his role and not permit himself to be perceived as a participant in a debate rather than a referee. He was, after all, not an elected MP. Besides, said the MP Joseph, “Why are you giving me a lesson in contract law? Since when dat’s your role?”
To my mind, having cited his authority (whether or not egregiously misconstrued) to allow the day’s debate, the Speaker should’ve allowed it to get underway without reference to court precedents that in any event had not undergone their final test. The House operates by its own rules, true; but is not a courtroom. Regardless of their former lives, House Speakers are not expected to function as if presiding over courts of law. For a time Speaker Daniel sounded in my ears as if he were the opposition’s defense counsel.
I need not go into the commonplace House shenanigans witnessed on Tuesday. Suffice it to say, the regular bad behavior paled into insignificance after that amateurish interpretation of Section 53. As to the relevance in the day’s debate of Section 21 of the Standing Orders, I’m still trying to come to terms with that. I will refrain from flogging a dead horse, unlike the Southeast Castries MP Guy Joseph at Tuesday’s debate. He took the no-confidence motion apart, limb by broken limb, finally declaring the doomed document as “a market-steps motion unfit to be debated in this honorable House; not worthy of a parliamentarian with a quarter century of experience.” He said the motion comprised “value judgments, uninformed opinions, speculation and untruths.” And in truth, the opposition was reduced to reaching back eight or more years for mud to sling at the image of Prime Minister Allen Chastanet. That every member of the opposition seemed to be reading from the same script spoke unflattering volumes.
The leader of the opposition and others on his side actually stooped low enough to insinuate members on the government side had behind closed doors declared the prime minister unfit for office but for various unidentified reasons were demonstrating their love for self over country. The sickening suggestion made a mockery of the earlier declared motive behind the motion. On several occasions before Tuesday, leading opposition politicians had stated publicly the sole purpose for proposing the motion was to remove the prime minister “in the best interests of the country.”
More privately the party’s Cassandras admitted the motion had been conceived as a mechanism for removing Allen Chastanet from his position, by tossing every variety of dirt in his direction—as if already that had not proved countless times, long before 2016, during the year’s election campaign and at every other opportunity, an altogether pointless endeavor.
Then there were the opposition’s supposed advisors, self-convinced that the MPs for Choiseul, Central Castries and Gros Islet would join Castries North’s Stephenson King in the assassination of Allen Chastanet’s character for the benefit of the opposition’s no-confidence motion. Ironically, the first MP to turn uncharacteristically vicious on the opposition’s initiative was the MP for Choiseul, the normally low-keyed Bradley Felix. He was followed by a particularly energized Sarah Flood-Beaubrun, whose performance in support of the prime minister brought to mind the “Sister Sarah” of 1996-97, when she was campaigning with Kenny Anthony for the removal of Prime Minister Vaughan Lewis.
“The problem the SLP now faces,” she said, “is that they cannot find anyone willing to lead them.” As if she had never heard of the presenter of the day’s no-confidence motion. The MP for Micoud North, Gale Rigobert, also took the opportunity to prove she can bare her teeth, blood-red lipstick be damned, when there’s easy meat to be disposed off.
Finally, it fell to Southeast Castries MP Guy Joseph to finish off the chicken that would be a bull. But already we’ve visited the bloody spectacle. As every reader of this column must already know, Philip Pierre’s motion was upside down crucified: the prime minister received the unqualified support of his Cabinet eleven.
Perhaps the saddest aspect of Tuesday’s spectacle was the recorded moment, immediately following the vote count, when the leader of the opposition bent down like a wet noodle from his seat, picked his briefcase off the floor and shuffled, his chin on his chest, out of the chamber, unacknowledged by his huddled together, smiling party colleagues. There was a time when everywhere that Mary went the lambs were sure to go. No more, evidently. Conceivably Philip J. Pierre will live to fight another day!
