Playing Truant in Parliament
Op-Ed
Iremember we had a childish propensity for playing truant when we were at school, sometimes even without any good reason. It was a huge youthful adventure, full of piquancy, but it was also considered as dreadful academic behavior, punishable both by the management and our parents with equal severity, although in different measure. The school administration would beat up non-attendance figures, and by the end of a semester the result would affect our academic success data. Our parents, who wanted their kids to excel, would die of shame and their love for us would temporarily turn into calculated frowns and insensitive language. In a nutshell, that model of scholastic exploit was outrageous in the public eye, but still tolerable enough to be overlooked in the long run.
I now wonder if the same juvenile craze is taking place in the Georgian legislative body. If I try to ballpark, using my own tally, then the opposition members of parliament have aggregately missed more than half of their term time at their desks, assigned to deputies by the electorate, having mandated each and every one of them with a representative power to work out and adopt the laws conducive to the wellbeing of our people. What we see instead in the field where the lawmakers are playing their roles for money, and for conviction into the bargain, is officially recognized truancy.
If there is a parliamentary bylaw that allows that much malingering, then we the people can sit back and watch how the quantitatively (and qualitatively) crippled legislation rules the country, but on top of the order of business, there should exist a sense of care and concern for the nation, for which those choice citizens were elected.
It is not difficult to penalize the absenteeism in schools and colleges, factories and mills, hospitals and resorts, hotels and tourist joints, sports and the entertainment world, but how can you handle the massive absence in a realm like parliament? They can easily afford to play hooky because there is nobody to castigate them: they are themselves the lawmakers, and there are so many twists and turns in that huge bunch of decrees.
The whole high-level hullabaloo is named a ‘protest’ or a ‘demarche’. OK, granted, you can dissent from unsavory political decisions, but staying in the mode of protest is no good when it damages people’s business, especially if you have been chosen to find the most optimal ways out of any situation the legislature might find itself in. Why not fight within the walls of parliament instead of walking the corridors of the same building in fury and idleness, pushing the decision-making process into the open air?
People love to shirk in general but the parliamentarians are not regular folks. They are different, and their job is different. Their time spent at work is much more valuable to the country than the amount of time I might spend at my desk writing another piece. From time to time, I malinger too, but I do this in privacy, not in the Republic’s Parliament.
Avoiding duty is part of life, but it depends, because absentees differ greatly: some of us might shirk and nothing serious will happen as a result, but certain malingerers may damage the country itself by their absence at work, so we have to be very careful going AWOL, keeping in mind the possible consequences, especially when we are elected to do a job of a certain specificity, and we are getting paid for it. We have good news for all men. And not just good, but even wonderful. Just imagine: now over the counter viagra substitute in the pharmacy can anyone. The only condition is to reach the age of majority. That is, if you are already a full 18 years old, you can safely go and buy. Only better to find out more information , and this can be done on our website
A political protest is utterly up to standard, but truancy must not be part of the schedule of a legislator. There are so many other ways to say no to what you loathe. The contemporary political ways and means allow for “doing business as usual” without that much fuss and pain in the neck, but some of the legislative necks are not prepared to uncomplainingly carry the pain they have asked for, and a voter has willed to vest in them in return for hard work and patience to the benefit of the nation.
By Nugzar B. Ruhadze
Photo: Students playing truant is one thing, but our parliamentarians? Source: elsieapp.com