OPPOSITION People’s National Party (PNP) parliamentarians in a highly dramatic debate on Tuesday voted against two Bills brought by the Government to postpone Local Government elections for the third time in under a year, charging that the administration’s reasons for the postponement to March 2012 is an act of cowardice because it was afraid to face the electorate at the polls at this time.

Debate on the Bills, An Act to postpone the holding of a General Election under the Parish Councils Act, and An Act to postpone the holding of a General Election under the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation Act saw the Parliament ‘descending’ into what Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller called a “new low” forcing the agreement of House Speaker Delroy Chuck as MPs rowed and flung insults at each other even drawing threats of lawsuits if certain charges made during the debate were repeated outside the precincts of Parliament.

According to State Minister with responsibility for Local Government Robert ‘Bobby’ Montague who brought the Bills, the administration thought the postponement best because the Local Government Reform Programme was incomplete, the establishment of Portmore as the 15th parish is still to be finalised and because of the need to facilitate efficient data collection under the 2011 Population and Housing Census, which the administration said “could be affected by electioneering”.

The final reason was the only “new” thing the administration cited in seeking the postponement, having voiced the others at other times. Tuesday, Montague said that the head of the Statistical Institute of Jamaica had advised that there were dangers associated with electioneering during census collection.

But Opposition MPs would have none of it and rejected the reasons posited by the Government, pointing out further that at present the Norbrook, Duncans, Frankfield and Spanish Town Divisions were all without local representation.

“STATIN never advised them of anything, a mek dem mek up dat,” one Opposition MP said.

“Hypocrites, you guys don’t want any elections either,” was the rejoinder from the Government bench.

“The government can’t face the electorate at this time, they don’t want to face the music and so they will do anything to hide from the people,” Opposition MP Colin Fagan charged.

His colleague Fitz Jackson urged the administration to trash plans to make Portmore a parish and instead channel those funds to make the municipality a model for others.

However, it was the contribution of the PNP’s Dr Peter Phillips that saw the House dissolving into a state of chaos that had Speaker Delroy Chuck struggling to restore order amidst endless shouts of “sell-out and Manatt, Manatt, Manatt” in reference to the current Commission of Enquiry into government’s dealing with United States firm Manatt, Phelps and Phillips over the Christopher ‘Dudus” Coke issue, which Phillips was integral in unveiling.

According to Dr Phillips, the postponement was nothing short of “political manoeuvring to suit the interests of the government which is afraid to face the electorate”.

The PNP’s DK Duncan, in another much interrupted contribution, said the reasons given by the government were not plausible. He further contended that the letter from STATIN used as an excuse by the government “did not hold water in relation to the postponement of elections”.

“Ask the prime minister to rescind the advice and let us have the elections now. The government is in retreat, it cannot face the people, you don’t want to have it because if you have it you are going to lose it, it’s a game,” Dr Duncan said.

But it was Montague’s accusation that Dr Phillips had secretly signed away the rights of Jamaicans to hold private telephone conversations without being listened in on by an uninvited third party that brought the House down.

“He is out of order, withdraw,” an incensed Phillips declared.

As if on cue all members of the PNP’s top brass stood, belongings in hand. “Walkout, walkout,” government members chanted provocatively. An adamant Montague, however, refused to withdraw his statement forcing a repeat of the walkout threat.

In the end, however, Opposition members remained but gave a resounding no each time the Bills were put to the vote. The government used its majority to push through the Bills, 30 to 23.