Parliament Is Not a Privilege. It Is a Duty.

And Everyone in That Chamber Has Failed It.

Guyana’s Parliament has not sat for more than 100 days. Let that settle. Not a scheduling hiccup. Not an administrative delay. A governance failure — sustained, deliberate, and inexcusable.

The sudden announcement of a June 5 sitting, arriving conveniently on the heels of pointed remarks from representatives of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, should not be met with relief. It should be met with fury. Because what it confirms is this: the machinery of Guyanese democracy does not move on constitutional obligation. It moves on diplomatic pressure. That is a humiliation dressed up as a concession.
Minister Gail Teixeira’s response — that the diplomats should have first “engaged the Government” — is as revealing as it is tone-deaf.

Parliamentary democracy is not a private arrangement to be managed behind closed doors by the politically convenient. It is a public institution. Constitutionally mandated. Non-negotiable. Its prolonged dormancy is not an internal matter to be shielded from outside eyes. It is a public failure to be answered to — by citizens first, and by international partners second.
But here is where this editorial must turn — because the Government cannot be allowed to stand alone in the dock.

The Opposition Has Questions to Answer Too.
One hundred days. Where was the thunder? Where were the emergency press conferences, the legal challenges, the sustained and relentless public pressure that this constitutional crisis demanded? The Opposition — including the lone seat of the Forward Guyana Movement — sounded alarm, yes. But alarm without escalation is just noise.

One must ask, plainly and without apology: if their emoluments had been withheld — if their salaries, allowances, and benefits had been suspended for every day Parliament failed to sit — would they have waited this long? Would the outrage have been so measured, so periodic, so politely contained?

The question answers itself.
Opposition members are not volunteers. They are elected representatives, paid from the public purse, entrusted with the sacred function of holding power accountable. If they treated this constitutional crisis with anything less than maximum urgency, they too have failed the people who sent them there. Silence in the face of institutional collapse is not opposition. It is complicity in slow motion.

The Deeper Crisis: A Parliament That Can Be Paused at Will
The most dangerous truth exposed by these 100 days is not that one party abused its power. It is that the system permitted it.

A Parliament that can be suspended at the political convenience of the executive is not a co-equal branch of government. It is a decorative institution — convened when useful, shuttered when inconvenient. That is not democracy. That is theatre.

And this theatre has played out against a backdrop of unprecedented national expenditure. Guyana is an oil-producing nation now, channelling revenues of a scale this country has never before managed. The Public Accounts Committee — the very body mandated to scrutinise how that money is spent — has been non-functional. Let us be direct: governance without scrutiny at this scale, with this volume of public funds in motion, is not just negligent. It is an invitation to plunder.
Governance without scrutiny is not governance. It is control.

The Reform That Must Now Follow
The resumption of Parliament on June 5 should not be celebrated. It should be the beginning of a reckoning. Because if history is any guide, this is not a correction — it is a recalibration. A temporary concession to external pressure, after which the status quo reasserts itself.
That cannot be allowed to happen again.

Guyana urgently needs — and the Opposition must now table — a Parliamentary Sittings (Fixed Schedule) Bill. Its purpose would be singular and unambiguous: to remove, permanently, the unilateral authority of any person, party, or executive to defer, delay, or dissolve parliamentary sittings at will.

The National Assembly must sit on a constitutionally fixed, publicly published roster. Not subject to ministerial discretion. Not contingent on political appetite.

Not moveable by Cabinet decree. The people’s business must be conducted on the people’s schedule — not the Government’s.
Such a Bill would do more than prevent future abuses. It would signal to every Guyanese citizen, and to every international observer, that this nation is serious about institutional governance.

That it does not require diplomatic nudges to honour its own Constitution.
Let the Opposition bring this Bill. Let them table it the moment Parliament reconvenes. Let every member — Government and Opposition alike — be forced to vote on whether they believe democracy should function inevitably or merely intermittently. Let that vote be on the record, in Hansard, for the people to judge.

The Standard Must Be Inevitability, Not Convenience
Guyanese must now move beyond outrage — because outrage without reform is just catharsis. What this moment demands is structural change, enforceable by law, binding on every administration that follows.

Democracy must not function when it is politically expedient. It must function because it cannot be stopped.

A Parliament that sits only when pressured is a Parliament that has already surrendered its purpose. A Parliament that sits on schedule, by law, regardless of who is in power — that is a Parliament worthy of the name.

Anything less is a betrayal. Of the Constitution. Of the electorate. Of the very idea of self-governance.
The people of Guyana did not elect a Parliament to meet at someone’s pleasure. They elected it to meet — period.

It is time to make that non-negotiable. In law. Without exception. Without delay.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨.