Flagging Christmas spirit

Christmas Day is supposedly for enjoyment, but this year the festive season was a day of hate and grooming hostility.

The ruling and opposition parties are both acting negatively under the pretext they have no other choice. They say they must stick to their current course of action for the good of the people. But public sentiment is geared toward condemning such actions because they seem so self-centered.

The ruling party’s push to ratify the FTA deal while blocking lawmakers from the Democratic Party and the ensuing declaration of a total war by the Democratic Party revive political actions from the past. Although two decades have passed since democracy was achieved in this country, actions by the ruling and opposition party have raised the specter of practices from the bad old days.

During the days of authoritarianism, the National Assembly was nothing more than a pawn in the power game. The dictatorial president was the only authority. The opposition party could prolong its political life by simply putting its eggs under the “Struggle for Democracy” flag. Times have changed and people’s expectations have changed as well.

Above all, the deliberation process on the bills leaves a lot of questions open. The Grand National Party says it is looking into the possibilities of unconstitutionality and other shortcomings, but it’s an internal deliberation at best. There is no way for the various voices of the people to be heard. You can’t put all the blame on the opposition party.

The lack of political prowess to include the opposition parties is also a failed responsibility on the part of the ruling party. The Democratic Party should be subject to more blame for sealing off the National Assembly with physical force. It’s very easy to see the calculation behind such actions. It seems that the Democratic Party wants to block all National Assembly activities in order to lure the ruling party into making ill-conceived moves.

Meanwhile, the Grand National Party has already given up on following normal ratification measures and is making preparations in case the National Assembly chairman is using his authority to directly move bills to the National Assembly session without getting passed by the subcommittees.

We may see a return to the pushing and shoving of recent days, yet many bills intended to overcome the economic crisis lie waiting in the pipeline.

The days of gaining votes with tactics that focus on the party’s interest rather than on the nation should stop once and for all.