Parliament: the political calculation lurking behind the request for a list of personal fortune

No matter the political incentive to the establishment of new National Assembly inner rules, they happen to be putting parliament members under pressure like never before as a consequence. So does President Rajaonarimampianina best secure a fragile parliamentarian majority based on a loose alliance between many political groups, considering that his own “group” and wanna be political party HERY VAOVAO is nowhere to be seen in the Parliament. The pattern as a whole is driven upside down by now, for parliament members basically used to be the ones entitled to summon the President and his Cabinet to turn out a list of their personal belongings. After all, public assets are managed by the executive layer of the power, and not by the parliament. “Do they long for having an eye on our wages, since we are no longer allowed any other breadwinning occupation!” protested a deputy.
In compliance with this new command, parliament members are allowed “a couple of months from their respective first day in charge to provide the High Constitutional Court with a list of personal assets and liabilities enclosing the whole of their personal belongings and eventually immovables” The order itself was issued two months after the new parliament’s first day in charge. In addition to this, the presidency keeps most tenacious when requiring each and every deputy to “provide the President of the High Constitutional Court as well as the National Assembly’s Bureau with a list of personal belongings and interests acquired over a period spanning each of the five years to his first day in charge as deputy, and with a list of whatever financial activity expected to be held or recovered, with exception of education branch activities.”
The scrutiny is actually harsh enough to make pressure effective: “Could this list ever fail to be completed, the High Constitutional Court would find the concerned deputy legally wanting and have no other option but expel him from the Parliament. The High Constitutional Court would subsequently appoint the assistant of the expelled reluctant deputy to fulfill his duty in his stead.” The local internal revenue services will be in charge of scrutinizing the inventories, eventually detecting frauds together with their origins before delivering reports to the High Constitutional Court.
Although the political credit suits a president and a prime minister with no proper party to rely on at the National Assembly, the measure incidentally complies with the people’s general thirst for ethics and logic. The current Chief of State and his staff do not want to be blamed for collusion with deputies merely interested in stuffing themselves more than they already are… the large majority of them being a brood of well off figures. The ruling power devoid of parliamentarian support,. is simply keen on avoiding any association with potential corruption attempt. A parliament member exchanging his vote for financial compensation would no longer be a premiere.
Considering the order and its particularly harsh conditions, not a single parliament member may expect to get easily away with it. The internal revenue services remain after all under government control, do they not? Parliamentarian groups are still to be shaped up, deputies may still be free to swap side at will, and this order clearly helps those with a wavering dedication to the cause see the least risky way to go. As a result, a dwindling score of deputies remains willing to be incorporated in the opposition. Yet they do not intend to give way without putting a fight up. “For the sake of ethics, may the order address each and every state official from top to bottom” urged Hanitra Razafimanantsoa. The rule exclusively targeting the parliament is not to the National Assembly’s Vice President’s liking.
Beyond personal belongings, the presidency actually cunningly by passes the parliamentarian immunity and paves the way to bust potentially uncomfortable businesses dealt long before the elections. Hery Rajaonarimampianina is not remotely interested in coaxing parliament members with advantages and 4 wheel drive vehicles. He needs a strong ruling power and consequently needs to weaken the parliament, to control deputies to the point of threatening their wages while denying them the right to have any other money making activity. Deputies will have no time to react accordingly and restore a better balance of power. They would have to face pending expulsion if they did.