So now we know: Local Government Minister Norman Whittaker is a genuine psychic. Without consulting people in the street, without conducting an opinion poll to find out what ordinary citizens think, without listening to anyone in particular beyond the pale of Freedom House, he has intuited that the majority of those domiciled within this country’s 83,000 square miles really don’t regard local government elections as a priority. Even more remarkable, his extra sensory perception is so precise, that he can tune in to everyone’s top ten priorities, and is in a position to aver that local government polls don’t figure in the first seven at all.
So having revealed to an SN reporter last Tuesday that the majority of Guyanese are not focused on local polls, exactly what is it, one might ask, that the clairvoyant Mr Whittaker says they are focused on? The answer, according to the Minister is bread and butter issues and cleaning up their environment.
This response would probably have flummoxed those innocents among us who are uninitiated into the arcane ways of government officials gifted with second sight. They have been labouring under the delusion all along that cleaning up the environment was a responsibility of the local authorities. These are the very same authorities which for the most part no longer function but which cannot be replaced because no election for so doing has been held in two decades and the government has not named a date. But the contradiction in what he said did not appear to disturb the Minister’s serenity one whit.
While Mr Whittaker might arguably lay claim to ‘See Far’ as his middle name, the ruling party has no such pretensions and instead has arrogated to itself the mantle of moral conscience of the nation. It is in this role it has adjudged SN’s campaign for the holding of local government elections as ‘unethical,’ and has said that the newspaper has been “transformed” into a “political organ [that] can no longer refer to itself as an independent daily newspaper.”
One is tempted to the view that the ruling party has a somewhat deformed idea of what constitutes ethical and unethical behaviour. Even if – purely for the sake of argument, that is – this newspaper had metamorphosed into an opposition paper, that would not in and of itself mean that its behaviour in relation to local government elections was unethical. Freedom House would have to adduce some other arguments to prove that particular case. It had in fact put forward various other propositions, but their spurious nature was pointed out by the editor-in-chief of SN, whose responses were quoted within the body of the report on the PPP statement which we carried on Tuesday.
The impression being transmitted, therefore, is that those who rule over us are trying to promote the notion that everything they do or advocate is ethical, and everything anyone else does or advocates is unethical. In this day and age that is altogether bizarre to say the least. But how else could it be explained that a party which once defined itself as ‘democratic’ – ie, wedded to free and fair elections – has now turned its face against these? For all of that, does its shrillness on the topic not carry with it the whiff of a guilty conscience?
So here we have a Minister who sees what isn’t there, and a party which resists seeing what is there. Fortunately, we have a President who is somewhat more candid. “I would prefer to go to the local government elections,” we quoted him as saying at a recent news conference,” but I can’t shut my eyes to the political reality that exists and make a bland promise that I will go to local government elections tomorrow as I would have done [if] we had the majority in the parliament…And we would not have been in the position that we are in today.”
So, a party which has already admitted that it wants a general election before local elections, because one assumes it expects to do badly in a local poll and doesn’t like the the recently passed local government legislation, is doing everything it can to pillory anyone who campaigns for a local vote. At least that was the position at the very beginning of last week. But then a possible deus ex machina intervened in the form of APNU announcing its support for a no-confidence vote in Parliament, which in turn led to the AFC filing its no-confidence motion.
The motion probably will not be tabled and debated until October, because the House now goes into recess, and with a majority of one the combined opposition will need every member in order to get the motion passed, something which might be difficult to achieve at this time of year. If the motion is passed some time from October onwards, it would trigger a general election within ninety days. However, there can be no guarantee that the House will not be called back from recess. Either way, while attention is focused on a possible general election, the long awaited local polls will take a back seat – no doubt to the relief of Freedom House.
There can of course be no guarantee that the government will not ask the AG to cast around for a legal option to counter the motion – although whether that is in fact possible is something the lawyers are in the best position to determine. However, if, hypothetically speaking, that happens, then we would be in exactly the same position we are in now: still waiting for local government elections.
Interestingly, it has now been hinted that the PPP/C will pre-empt the opposition and call a general election itself, which is something which it falls within the President’s prerogative to do. If this happens, then they would be able to name a date without being bound by the ninety-day framework which would be triggered by the passing of a no-confidence motion. If they did that, they would then be able to avoid local government elections before a general one, which is their objective.
In theory, of course, the government could call local polls before October, which would probably push back the passing of the no-confidence motion. However, if they have gone to such lengths to avoid them up to this point, it would be somewhat out of character if they changed course now.