The current quarrel between the government, the Speaker of the National Assembly and the opposition over the content of the first Order Paper (parliamentary agenda) of this new parliamentary year keeps us in the same mode that has developed since the last general elections: a government blustering its way in the hope of finding an opportune moment to call a new election and an opposition determined to close the noose around the government’s neck. The burden of the government’s present contention is that the opposition was wrong to place certain issues on the parliamentary agenda and the speaker is at fault for pandering to, if not encouraging, their whims when he allows them to do so knowing full well that either similar type bills have been tabled and/or that the president is on record as saying that he will not assent to any legislation that he and his party did not agree to and better still, did not have a hand in devising.
Of course, nowhere in this discourse does the regime take the blame for this situation, which has resulted largely from the fact that there is no operational forum for negotiating these matters. The so-called tripartite committee established just after the last election is all but dead and the regime seems in no hurry to reactivate it. If anything,
