Gov’t MPs threaten censure motion against Mark Golding
GOVERNMENT Members of Parliament yesterday threatened to censure Opposition Leader Mark Golding for his controversial “dead voters” comments at a political meeting in St Andrew East Rural on Sunday.
Minister of Science, Energy, Telecommunications and Transport Daryl Vaz led the charge, stating that the Opposition leader is not unaware that the issue of dead voters has long plagued the nation.
He said that regardless of whether the comments were made on a political platform or not, such discourse had dogged the political system from in the 1970s and has no place in our society.
“It is not something that he has not read about, or something he has dreamed about, it is real live politics in Jamaica decades ago and that to me is the most important part,” the minister said.
“I am saying that without getting into any contention, because this is not a contentious matter, this is a matter of principle and morals and nothing else. I am saying that I feel so strongly about it as an MP in this House that if he does not do it, then we will move to follow the processes to censure him, and have a censure motion because it is fundamental to democracy,” Vaz warned.
He said that it was not debatable that, based on the positions held by Golding, the first thing that he would have done in the House Tuesday was to get up and deal with the issue frontally, as a leader should, whether he is wrong or right.
Vaz was joined by fellow Government MP for St Thomas Western James Robertson, who said that Golding’s behaviour Tuesday could give more reasons for Government MPs to rise on a censure motion, upon the resumption of sittings on the House after the Independence break.
“I do believe that his attitude here is wrong. I believe that he needs to be more responsible on his platforms, for the utterances of individuals on his platform, because I believe that we don’t want to see our country taken back to the days when our electoral process is suspected… I think that the decent thing for me to do, then, is to ask him to withdraw those comments,” Robertson said.
However, Opposition spokesman on labour and social security, Angela Brown Burke, the only member on that side to respond to Vaz and Robertson, strongly defended the Opposition leader, insisting that members on her side of the floor had not taken any liberty that had not been given to them.
“You are not going to get members on the Opposition benches to be quiet, because if we get up to ask a question, there are members who are going to operate in the same way member Vaz did. That kind of bullyism will not work with this Opposition. So we will come and we try and try again. It is not going to work,” she added.
But, with the House expected to resume after the Independence break, it seems very likely that Golding’s comments on the election machinery will continue to raise voices on both sides, again, after the resumption.
Golding told a political meeting in East Rural St Andrew over the weekend that comrades who voted in the 2011 election should cast their ballots in the upcoming polls, adding that “even some who not alive, if dem can deal with it, no problem”.
In a statement on Monday, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) dubbed Golding’s statements as reckless, saying they seemingly encouraged casting votes in the name of deceased individuals.
The JLP added that the “reckless statement amounts to the promotion of electoral fraud and poses a grave threat to the integrity of our democratic process”.