Barrow condemns speaker’s “acts of lunacy”

This morning a calm but obviously seething Barrow told News Five that while the prospect of a new speaker being appointed is highly unlikely given the P.U.P.’s majority in the House, his United Democratic Party will launch a public relations campaign against Zabaneh’s “acts of lunacy”. Barrow contends that there are no Standing Orders–standing orders being the rules of the House of Representatives–that give the Speaker any authority to force a member to show documents in his possession, nor can the Speaker terminate the sitting prior to six in the evening if there are members of the Opposition who wish to speak on the adjournment.

Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
?For her to frustrate the representatives of the people and to prevent them from discussing the business of the people is really unforgivable. I will write to her to make a formal complaint. I propose to write to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and to thus internationalize the issue, and we are meeting tomorrow in a special session to determine other steps that we can take.?

?There comes a point at which you have to express your frustration when right is on your side and your rights are being violated in an emphatic manner. So no, there is absolutely no regret. We were certainly, all of us, controlled enough not to go beyond the limits of behaviour in a situation such as that. Nobody used any foul language to her, nobody attempted to get physical with any other member of the House; those are the sorts of things that can never be justified. But in terms of expressing one?s frustration in a gesture of that nature, no I think that?s the way it ought to be when there?s a need to focus dramatically on how absolutely deplorable, and in fact lunatic, the actions of the Speaker were. ?

Tomorrow’s U.D.P. meeting on this issue will include the party’s eight elected representatives as well as members of its central executive.