each other. The national interest suggests that a new mandate should be sought, which may break the deadlock, while the partisan interest suggests that they should stay put, which will continue the deadlock,” he wrote.
Ramkarran noted that the current situation is characterized by the inability of the government to persuade the opposition to support any major project, most legislation or most budgets in their entirety. “Clearly both the government and opposition might feel that such a situation cannot continue indefinitely and that it might be in the interests of the nation to call new elections,” he said.
The former Speaker said that resolving the current political impasse by new elections or other means should be the concern of all political forces and all Guyanese.
A suggestion of elections being a way forward ought to be an issue attracting careful consideration with the national interest being paramount, he said.
Ramkarran noted that the state of the economy has always played a defining role in political developments. “While PPP governments can boast of substantial progress in many areas, there is still a sufficiently large group of its supporters who have not been touched in any significant way by economic and other developments. These are the people who can cause the results of 2011 to be repeated because their situation has not changed since 2011.
The opposition’s supporters will not react against their parties because of the economy. But they may react at the impotence of the opposition by a display of apathy on Election Day,” he said.
