It is good that more people, including letter writers and bloggers, are demanding that those who are calling for the formation of a national unity government give more details of what it is they intend. Indeed, it is astonishing that after nearly three years as the official opposition, APNU, which has been the main proposer of this kind of arrangement, has not yet been able to explore with the public how such an arrangement is intended to work. It is as if the party holds the simplistic and dangerous view that the terms “national unity” or “shared governance” speak for themselves.
Last week I promised to complete my consideration of some of the more recent suggestions and critiques of the current power-sharing discourse. Today, I want to consider a few of the thoughts provided by former speaker of the National Assembly, Mr Ralph Ramkarran, and, by extension, Mr Vishnu Bisram who strongly supported his suggestions.
I have argued before (“Where liberal voices are muted greater atrocities result” SN: 04/07/2004) that Mr Ramkarran had been one of the liberal voices in the PPP and continues to be so publicly now he is out of the party. That commitment to social change, coupled with his experience in government and law, means that his contribution is well worth considering.
Mr Ramkarran and I are agreed on the need for the sharing of executive power in Guyana. However, I believe that notwithstanding his open mindedness, like so many others, he is being too casual about the possible negative consequences of shared governance.
I argued two weeks ago that “Given the nature of our society and our constitutional history, our goal demands that we seek to establish national governance arrangements that are ethnically as inclusive as possible and that those arrangements are constructed to prevent governments from remaining in power for long periods of time.” It was brought to my attention that in our ethnic condition these are contradictory goals and that our task must also be to establish institutions and an environment that will mitigate the effect of longevity in government and simultaneously create conditions for its ultimate demise ie, for the development of normal politics.
If ethnic executive inclusivity is our goal, there appears to be no single constitutional solution to the possibility of longevity in government in our condition!
Therefore, in my view, what is require is a raft of measures, all of which may be insufficient in themselves but together will provide important checks and balances. Over time, these should also help to nurture a more accountable political environment (‘Some suggestions for constitutional reform” SN: 27/08/2014).
This is why I am in fundamental disagreement with Mr Ramkarran, whose proposals will severely limit our capacity to craft such measures. He wants to return to the Westminster system in which the prime minister will be chosen from the party that controls the legislature, thus institutionalizing executive control of the legislature and diminishing the separation of powers. That is, legally enabling the dangerous possibility of a PPP/C/APNU coalition executive having both longevity in government and control of the legislature!
Aside: in relation to the appointment of the prime minister and the titular president, Mr Bisram reminded him that: “Dr Jagan suggested a coalition government with the Prime Minister coming from the largest party and the ceremonial head of state President coming from the second largest party.” In practice, what this most likely would mean is that given their numbers, Afro-Guyanese will be allocated the powerless, titular position, for some considerable time!
Relating to the measures to contain stability in government, our first task must be to have remaining in the National Assembly the strongest possible opposition.
Contrary to Mr Bisram (who did not read our presentations) it was I who suggested that all parties gaining more than 10% of the votes at a national election should have the right to a proportionate share of the government, and Mr Ramkarran agreed. Thus, bearing in mind our need to have the strongest possible opposition in parliament, I now wish to suggest that if the 10% threshold does not serve this purpose it should be increased.
A second measure is for those wishing to be president to have to secure more than 50% of the votes cast. In our present condition, this will have the effect of forcing such persons to find support across racial boundaries.
Another measure is to enhance the separation of powers by immediately removing the theoretical possibility of the executive controlling the national assembly.
Properly structured, in time, this will open the possibility that since government will not be a reflection of any one party and to be elected the president will be forced to work across ethnicities, in practice executive influence on political parties and thus the legislature will wane.
Mr Ramkarran and I differ for his parliamentarianism does not offer this possibility. It will give the premiership and in fact the legislature, to the party with the majority of seats in the parliament.
As a fourth measure, unlike Mr Ramkarran, I believe that a properly constructed constituency arrangement, where local interests are coupled to a system that is designed to encourage cross-ethnic voting and allow local individuals to run for seats in the National Assembly, will lead to the invigoration of local politics. It could blunt the edge of ethnic competition and even lead to the election of independent MPs.
These are some measures that could constrain longevity in government without much additional cost but in any case, the mere thought of returning to the past in the age of quickening innovation and change is debilitating. To return to an old British aristocratic convenience of titular leadership, from which most nations are attempting to extricate themselves, is even more repugnant. But if I thought them to be useful, even these I would be prepared to suffer!
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
