By Political Agnostic
If one has the time to watch any parliamentary proceeding across the globe, you will always find one that ends up in a messy, chaotic fashion where its members turn from professionals and advocates to figurative children.
Just this year alone, a Taiwanese parliamentarian ran away with a Bill to prevent its passage, the world witnessed the rebirth of alliteration in the US via the “Bleached Blonde Bad Built Butch Body” saga and South Korean politicians had to jump the fences of their own Parliament to prevent their President from going through with martial law.
So, as much as someone might be shocked by parliamentary chaos, it shouldn’t be seen as completely unnatural for politicians to engage in unprofessional behaviour.
However, what has been shocking was Opposition Members of Parliament, for the second year in a row to insufficiently not use parliamentary tools at their disposal to hold the government to account.
I personally believe that Antigua and Barbuda is a politically immature society—and I say so with the kindest of intentions.
After 43 years of independence, not much seemed to have changed—our two political parties continue to let us down with their antics, arrogance in government and the apparent lack of willingness to collaborate to make meaningful changes for the better.
In our Parliament, this immaturity is more prevalent to anyone with two eyes and/or ears. Wednesday’s performance wasn’t just an ineffective use of parliamentary procedures- it actively undermined whatever legitimate concerns the opposition had about ministerial accountability.
Let’s start with the basic facts: while the government has a duty to explain its budgetary allocation, and list out its plans for the new year, the opposition equally has a duty to keep their feet to the fire at any point without needing to rely on the government to explain their plans before they speak.
Additionally, Opposition members arrived late, then demanded the Prime Minister not wrap up the debate because other ministers hadn’t presented their portfolios. But rather than using Standing Orders to their advantage, they opted for chaos. The result? A nearly $2 billion budget passed with minimal scrutiny.
Now, let me give the opposition some credit: amidst the chaos of shouting and standing, they eventually got around to invoking Standing Order 45, requesting a brief adjournment to the proceedings and requested formal divisions to make sure their objections were officially recorded.
However, here was where the opposition’s strategy faltered. Parliamentary procedures provide a powerful platform through speaking rights. Each refused opportunity to speak represented a missed chance to challenge ministerial spending plans and business plans for the year, document concerns about the process, question specific budget allocations and create an official record of their individual position.
Additionally, their actions in Parliament could have forced the Speaker who stood up on several occasions—a tool reserved for when Parliament becomes disorderly— to ask members to withdraw immediately from the House during the remainder of that day’s sitting or be suspended (Standing Order 50) and it seemed that the Speaker so far has projected a neutral stance over proceedings.
As I previously said, every Budget contains Business plans for each ministry where they outline some of the issues facing that department—even a comparison of improvements or the lack thereof made in this regard would serve to scrutinize the government and force them to respond.
MP Trevor Walker’s admission about forgotten notes and threats to “filibuster” (an idea that only exist in the US and has no relevancy here) only served to justify the government’s position on concluding debate.
The opposition had secured their procedural objections through proper channels, then undermined their own position by refusing to engage in substantive debate.
The irony is that their legitimate concerns about ministerial accountability gets lost in their own tactical decisions. You can effectively challenge a government’s process while still participating in parliamentary debate – these aren’t mutually exclusive options.
Parliamentary democracy works best when opposition members utilize all available tools – both procedural objections and speaking opportunities.
The opposition’s tactical approaches ignore powerful tools such as Standing Order 25 which provides for written questions requiring ministerial responses, Standing Order 26(6) permitting up to four supplementary questions and Standing Order 26(13) which enables the Speaker to seek written explanations from ministers for delayed answers.
Every sitting of Parliament, note the number of times the clerk reads the following: “Questions to Ministers” with little to no response and the clerk moves on as though it was expected.
While these specific Standing Orders require previous usage prior to the Budget Debate, the fact that they have been unused for years speaks volumes.
The second—and possibly the strongest— option available to the Opposition is Standing Order 77 which establishes the Standing Finance Committee.
According to the rules, the Standing Finance Committee “shall consider the Estimates of Expenditure in relation to the Heads of Expenditure in the order submitted by the Leader of the Opposition.”
If the opposition fails to exercise this right, the government shall have the right to determine the order.
In practice, this means they can strategically force ministerial presentations to focus scrutiny where needed and had it been invoked in the immediate aftermath of the Prime Minister’s Budget Presentation, they could have, in writing, formally submitted their preferred order of ministerial presentations, required ministers to present their portfolios in that sequence and created a structured framework for budget scrutiny.
Instead, by not invoking Standing Order 77 early in the process, the opposition lost their procedural advantage to compel ministerial presentations.
Their protests about ministers not presenting, while perhaps valid in principle, lacked the procedural foundation that proper use of Standing Order 77 would have provided if used early on.
This isn’t about politics as the government, as I said, has a general duty of care to transparency and accountability and failure to speak about their ministry’s work for 2025 does the public more of a disservice than benefit and I have my own gripes with some of the behaviour of government MPs, especially in Parliament.
But not using parliamentary procedures enough to their advantage continues to fail them, similar to how failure to show up for last year’s debate and hold a People’s Parliament among their own supporters did the rest of the public a disservice.
