On Friday morning, the members of government and the parliamentary opposition will be sworn in and formally commence their five-year term of national service in the Parliament.
Cries of foul surfaced on Thursday, however, when both the United Progressive Party (UPP) and the independent elected representative for St. Peter, Asot Michael, said they were being limited to inviting only ten family members, friends or supporters to the swearing in ceremony.
In his response to the notice from the Clerk to Parliament in which the ten invitations to each opposition member of Parliament were enclosed, Michael said the move to extend invitations to family and supporters was unprecedented in the history of Antigua and Barbuda.
Michael said that he would not honour the Clerk’s request as he expected as many as sixty of his supporters to attend.
He further noted that for the first time in his long service as a Member of Parliament, that invitations had been extended to members of the diplomatic corps to the swearing in ceremony of Members of Parliament.
The gallery at the parliament can accommodate 290 people. With eight elected members of the opposition this means their well-wishers will only occupy 80 seats in the House.
The United Progressive Party, which won six of the seventeen seats, issued their own statement on Thursday afternoon in which they condemned the move by the Clerk.
“We have extended open invitations to our constituents to attend the ceremony and therefore demand, in the spirit of ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people,’ that appropriate arrangements be made to accommodate all those who wish to attend this extremely important event in our parliamentary democracy,” the UPP defiantly stated.
“In this country, the democratic practice for the people’s participation in the swearing-in ceremonies for Members of Parliament provides for attendance on a first-come first-served basis. It has always been up to the people, in the spirit of their involvement in the election process, to witness their elected representatives take the oath of office.
“Accordingly, we note the convenient departure from settled practice – supposedly to invite Members of the Diplomatic Corps to the ceremony and thereby limit the space available for members of the public,” the UPP statement continued.
Ahead of the UPPs statement, Kelvin Simon, the elected representative for St. Mary’s South wrote to the Clerk to Parliament to request that the limitation applied to opposition MPs be reconsidered.
At Thursday morning’s post-Cabinet Press Briefing, information minister and MP for St. John’s City East said he too had been issued with a similar request from the Clerk of the House and could not give a reason for the decision being made.
“I am not in any better position to respond. I am an elected Member of Parliament as well and I received a package of invitations as well.
“I imagine based on the interests that will be in tomorrow’s proceedings, that the Parliament officials – the Clerk to Parliament – would ordinarily be concerned about ensuring that there is a measure of order and control.
“So, I do not know. I can’t speak to what went into the consideration, but like any other MP, I would have received an allotment of persons to attend,” MP Nicholas explained.
