THAT PESKY NO CONFIDENCE MOTION

A lot of people will say that it is about time that the Opposition filed a Motion of no confidence in Rohan Sinanan, the erstwhile and seemingly hapless Minister of Works over his bungling of the ferry issue. That matter alone should have resulted in his dismissal from the Cabinet a long time ago ... although to be fair to him, I heard him on the television this morning seeming to cast some blame for the present imbroglio on his predecessor, the equally hapless Fitzgerald Hinds (which may or my not be true).


However, an equal number of people will simply sneer and rock back in their seats and say in effect that it won't matter a hoot because the Government has a built in majority and therefore the Motion will most certainly be defeated.  But those persons will be missing the point of a no confidence Motion. The point of using such a device (a Motion of no confidence) is to place on the record all of the things that an Opposition is complaining about pertaining to a particular issue and also to place on the public record the Government's response to the charges. That can make things very sticky for a Government around election time, especially if the replies are patently weak. Its hard to go against something that you have said on the record without looking like a liar or a fool ... or both!


Of course, the Government can drag out the debate ... which is most likely what will happen in this case. You see, such a motion can only be heard on the last Friday of every month, which is always designated as 'Private Members' Day', which means the day that ordinary Members of Parliament can bring a matter to be debated. The Government of the day can effectively stifle debate by causing the House to be adjourned early thus preventing further discussion of the issue at hand, at least until the Government has an answer to the particular issue being debated. It would obviously be in the Government's best interests to delay having this debate until such time as the Galleons Passage ferry finally arrives from its seemingly never ending journey from China and it (the Government) has something concrete to show besides Mr. Imbert's promises, which, sadly, are taken with more than a pinch of salt by most people.


What is most likely to happen is that the Government will probably allow the mover of the Motion (in this case, the Opposition Leader) to make her presentation and then either shut down the debate right after she has finished, or have one Government speaker reply and then adjourn the House. Then do not have the debate resume until that Chinese built ferry finally arrives ... which looks like sometime around the end of May/early June  ... if we're lucky!!


The Government would take a few blows, but at least once the Galleons Passage was here it would have something to show the voting public and it's PR machine could go to work with some semblance of truthfulness. Expect some shenanigans on Friday. Exactly what those shenanigans will be, is anybody's guess, but do not expect a conclusion of this debate. Its not in the Government's interests to have that debate right now ... and (as Camille Robinson-Regis reminds us) they're in charge!