Gov’t dual citizenship MPs resign

Last Updated on Tuesday, 2 April 2019, 9:09 by Writer

Guyana’s President David Granger on Monday received and accepted the resignation of all APNU+AFC coalition Members of Parliament (MPs) who are holders of dual citizenship.

The MPs are Guyanese-American Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, and Guyanese-Britons Rupert Roopnaraine, Carl Greenidge and Dominic Gaskin. These members will not be returning to the National Assembly when it reconvenes on April 11.

The Government says it is committed to upholding the Constitution of Guyana and by virtue, the March 22, 2019 ruling of the Court of Appeal on the December 21, 2018 Motion of No Confidence, which was brought against the Government.

This now means that the opposition People’s Progressive Party’s (PPP) dual citizenship MPs – Guyanese-Canadian Gail Teixeira, and Guyanese-Americans Odinga Lumumba and Adrian Annamayah – are the only dual nationals in the 65-seat House.

The PPP has already said Teixeira and Lumumba have decided to give up their foreign citizenship. At the same time, that party had said its 32 MPs would not be attending sittings of the National Assembly until the Caribbean Court of Justice decides on the validity of the no-confidence motion and related cases.

The decision by the Government ministers to resign came amidst consistent pummeling by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo that government was two-faced in honouring the decisions of the Guyana High Court and Guyana Court of Appeal.

Jagdeo had alluded to the fact that government had acknowledged the invalidation of the no-confidence motion by the Court of Appeal on the basis that it should have been passed by an absolute majority of  34 votes instead of 33.