GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC:
Legislators here have passed the historic but controversial recall legislation amidst abstentions from some parliamen-tarians and condemnation from the minority Alliance for Change (AFC).
The ruling People's Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) coalition and main opposition People's National Congress Reform- One Guyana (PNCR-1G) backed the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2007 to ensure it got the two-thirds support needed to become law.
The two major parties and the Guyana Action Party/Working People's Alliance (GAP/WPA) suffered major defections during the 2001-2006 Eighth Parliament leading up to the formation of the AFC.
own policies
"All parties have their own policies and programmes and the people have faith, allegiance and trust in them to elect them to power in the elections by casting their valuable votes.
"Members drawn from a list which got the mandate of the people to elect such members from the list are thus answerable to the trust reposed in them and it is their bounden duty to adhere to the policies and programmes which gave them the berth," said Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee.
However, the minority AFC blasted the major parties for passing the "reprehensible" measure.
strong condemnation
AFC legislator Sheila Holder, who defected from the GAP/WAP party during the Eighth Parliament in 2005, maintained that since PNCR-1G leader, Robert Corbin, was in agreement with President Bharrat Jagdeo in bringing the bill to the House, both deserved strong condemnation.
She accused the two major political parties of conspiring to use the controversial legislation like the Sword of Damocles to get its MPs to "toe the party line."
The AFC party "believes in the independent thought of its par-liamentarians," Holder said.
The three AFC MPs - Khemraj Ramjattan, Sheila Holder and David Patterson - voted against the measure, while two PNCR-1G MPs, Deborah Backer and James McAllister, abstained.
Backer and McAllister are now unpopular within the PNCR-1G, following the recent bitter Biennial Congress when they publicly withdrew support for Corbin in favour of challenger Vincent Alexander.
