Leader of the Forward Guyana Movement (FGM) Amanza Walton-Desir has accused the governing People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) of hypocrisy and selectively applying rules after she was excluded from parliamentary committees despite receiving more votes than other MPs whom the party previously supported for senior positions.
However, Clerk of the National Assembly Sherlock Isaacs yesterday pointed to the formula that guides the process and said that the matter was not one of “discretion or political preference”.
Speaking on her exclusion, Walton-Desir said the PPP/C’s opposition to her nomination by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) exposed the government’s willingness to invoke procedure only when politically convenient.
“The selective application of numbers really tells you all you need to know about the PPP/C,” Walton-Desir said, noting that the party had in previous years supported the appointments of members from smaller parties with significantly fewer votes.
According to her, in 2020, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira had objected to her nomination while backing the appointment of Lenox Shuman as Deputy Speaker who represented a joinder list and had only received 2,657 votes. Furthermore, she pointed to the 2023 appointment of Asha Kissoon, who received 244 votes, saying no formula prevented that appointment either. “Now FGM won 4,585 votes and that figure is almost 20 times what Kissoon had and almost double what Shuman had,” she said.
The controversy arose during meetings to constitute parliamentary committees, where the FGM failed to secure enough votes at the 2025 General and Regional Elections to automatically qualify for committee representation under the formula used to allocate seats.
WIN Member of Parliament Tabitha Sarabo-Halley said opposition parties had nonetheless intended to place Walton-Desir on the Foreign Relations Committee and the Constitutional Reform Committee, while also naming her as an alternate on the Natural Resources Committee.
She explained that the issue came up when there was a need for another opposition member on the Parliamentary Management Committee. APNU MP Ganesh Mahipaul nominated Walton-Desir and WIN seconded the motion, believing that every party represented in the National Assembly should have a seat on the committee. However, Speaker of the National Assembly Manzoor Nadir and government Chief Whip Teixeira maintained that Walton-Desir could not be appointed because FGM had not secured sufficient votes to qualify for committee representation.
Sarabo-Halley said that while the opposition had understood from the outset that Walton-Desir’s vote tally did not entitle her to a committee seat under the formula, its position was that if opposition parties chose to allocate one of their seats to a member of another party, there should have been no issue with doing so. She added that there was considerable pushback from the Speaker of the National Assembly who maintained that the seat could not be transferred.
Meanwhile, Walton-Desir said that the PPP/C was “using procedure to impose pressure” but said her exclusion from committees would not prevent her from participating in parliamentary oversight. “Manzoor Nadir and Gail Teixeira not putting me on a committee doesn’t silence my voice,” she said. “I will sit in whichever committee meeting I want to. That is my right as a Member of Parliament. I may not be able to vote, but certainly I will be able to audit any parliamentary sectoral committee.”
Isaacs in a statemen said that the method currently employed is designed to ensure that the composition of Parliamentary Committees reflects, as closely as possible, the balance of political representation in the National Assembly.
The allocation of committee seats, he said, is therefore based on the number of seats held by
each political party in Parliament.
Isaacs said that this principle is enshrined in the Standing Orders of the National Assembly.
Specifically, Standing Order 94, which addresses the constitution of Select
Committees, provides that:
Standing Order 94(1):
“Every Select Committee shall be so constituted as to ensure, as far as possible, that
the balance of parties in the Assembly is reflected in the Committee.”
Standing Order 94(2):
“Unless otherwise provided in the Standing Orders or by Resolution of the
Assembly, the Committee of Selection may determine the size of each Committee.”
Isaacs said that in applying this longstanding principle, committee membership is allocated
proportionately according to the strength of each party in the National Assembly. For example:
10-Member Committee
PPP/C 6
WIN 2
APNU 2
FGM 0
9-Member Committee
PPP/C 5
WIN 2
APNU 2
FGM 0
7-Member Committee
PPP/C 4
WIN 2
APNU 1
FGM 0
He said that these examples demonstrate how the principle of proportional representation is applied in practice.
“While every effort is made to reflect the balance of parties in the
National Assembly, the finite size of committees means that perfect proportionality
is not always mathematically possible.
“The allocation formula is therefore not a matter of discretion or political preference
but rather a longstanding parliamentary mechanism intended to ensure fairness and
proportional representation in the work of Parliamentary Committees”, the Clerk said.
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