Dear Editor,
The exclusion of Amanza Walton from parliamentary committees has been dressed up as a matter of arithmetic, proportional representation, and parliamentary procedure. Few Guyanese are persuaded.
The explanation offered is that parliamentary representation must be allocated strictly according to mathematical formulas and vote thresholds. Yet Guyanese have seen parliamentary practice operate very differently before.
Lenox Shuman was elected Deputy Speaker even though the political party he represented received approximately half the number of votes received by Amanza Walton. Dr. Asha Kissoon also served as Deputy Speaker although her party secured only 244 votes at the 2020 General and Regional Elections.
In both cases, Parliament found sufficient flexibility to elevate representatives of very small political parties to one of the highest offices in the National Assembly. No one suggested then that parliamentary participation and influence must be rigidly proportional to electoral strength.
Yet when Amanza Walton’s name was unanimously proposed by both APNU and WIN for membership of parliamentary committees, we were suddenly told that mathematical formulas leave no room for accommodation.
The question therefore is not whether Parliament has the ability to exercise flexibility. It clearly does. The question is why that flexibility has been available to others, including individuals with significantly smaller electoral mandates, but is unavailable when Amanza Walton is nominated.
The public is entitled to ask whether this is really about mathematics at all.
One possible explanation is that Amanza Walton has become a persistent source of embarrassment to both the Government and the Speaker.
When Parliament was allowed to languish for more than one hundred days without meeting, an unprecedented situation in modern Guyanese parliamentary history, it was not the Government that demanded action. It was Amanza Walton who launched a public petition, mobilized citizens, engaged international parliamentary bodies, alerted diplomatic missions, and raised the alarm throughout the Caribbean and the wider democratic community. The resulting pressure thrust the issue into the international spotlight and ultimately forced the Government to reconvene Parliament.
That alone would have irritated those who preferred silence.
Nor was that an isolated example.
The Speaker’s controversial attempts to prohibit use of the word “corruption” in Parliament became a source of national ridicule. The position was always difficult to defend in a country where concerns regarding transparency, procurement, public accountability, and governance are regularly discussed by citizens, civil society, opposition parties, and international observers.
The irony became even more apparent when Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira herself was able to answer parliamentary questions relating to corruption and anti-corruption obligations without Parliament collapsing into disorder and without any apparent need for the extraordinary protection previously afforded by banning a word from parliamentary debate.
Minister Teixeira is, after all, one of Guyana’s principal representatives on international anti-corruption commitments and governance initiatives. It became increasingly difficult to explain why corruption could be discussed in international forums, addressed by ministers, and debated by citizens, yet somehow became an impermissible subject when raised by an opposition Member of Parliament inside the National Assembly.
There was also the now widely repeated reminder to Speaker Nadir that Parliament is “the People’s House.” The phrase resonated because it expressed a simple truth: those who preside over the National Assembly do so as custodians of a public institution, not as its owners.
Then there was Mocha.
When the Speaker reportedly expressed unfamiliarity with the issues surrounding one of the most controversial land disputes and removals in recent Guyanese history, Amanza Walton did what opposition parliamentarians are supposed to do. She directly challenged that assertion and presented evidence that now forms part of the parliamentary record.
The ruthless removal of Cane View residents at Mocha received extensive local and international attention. No reasonable observer could claim that the matter was obscure or unknown.
By directly confronting the Speaker on his convenient amnesia, Walton again highlighted the gap between official narratives and public reality.
It is therefore difficult to avoid the conclusion that her exclusion from committees is not about parliamentary procedure at all.
Parliamentary committees are where oversight occurs. They are where ministers are questioned, policies examined, expenditures scrutinized, and government agencies held accountable. To exclude one of the Assembly’s most outspoken and independent members from those forums inevitably raises concerns that the objective is not administrative efficiency but political containment.
The Speaker’s constitutional responsibility is to protect Parliament, not governments.
A Parliament confident in its record welcomes scrutiny.
A Parliament fearful of scrutiny looks for ways to limit it.
The Guyanese people can decide for themselves which description better fits the present situation.
Yours in National Development
Yours truly,
Randolph J. Critchlow
