The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) is proposing that the political parties return to Parliament to complete key electoral reforms in order to improve relations between the government and the parliamentary opposition.
According to the group, the current political impasse is the result of neither the government nor opposition having accepted the implications of minority government, and continuing to view themselves as the sole representatives of the will of the people.
“The result has been three years of fractious, fruitless infighting,” the GHRA say in a press release issued on Monday, a week after President Donald Ramotar prorogued the Parliament to avoid a no-confidence vote against his government.
“Similar inflexible posturing is evident in the post-prorogue period. These postures, buttressed by inflammatory statements, have generated both public annoyance and bewilderment over how to set about rectifying the crisis,” it adds, while noting that in stable democracies what is transpiring here could be absorbed without major cost.
However, in Guyana’s brittle political culture, such tactics become threatening and destructive.
According to the GHRA, if the widely sought “unconditional” return to Parliament is achieved, the likelihood is the resumption of the turgid, unproductive process that has obtained over the past three years, “with no confidence vote and prorogue scenarios lurking continuously in the wings.” This scenario also holds the possibility of a successful vote of no confidence leading to elections, which would take place under “the same rotten electoral system which has bedevilled political solutions in Guyana for the past sixty years.”
In these circumstances, the group has set out the following proposals for public consideration that rest on two premises; that the current problem is not episodic but systemic and rooted ultimately in the failure to complete constitutional and in particular electoral reform in 2001. The second premise is that the ‘victory’ for one side of the political divide alone will not generate a long-term stable solution.
As a result, the GHRA proposes that the political parties agree to a return to Parliament with a mandate primarily to complete the process of key constitutional reforms that impact on national elections. The group believes that this undertaking might better improve inter-party relations and successfully conclude parliamentary business which has eluded resolution for three years.
It notes that Guyana’s electoral system is the most rudimentary form of proportional representation possible. It explains that conduct of elections is the responsibility of a Commission comprising members of participating political parties, one vote determines the presidency, regional constituency seats and national list seats. Voters, therefore, have no idea of whom they are voting because selection of candidates from the party lists is entirely in the hands of the party leader, it adds.
“Regional constituencies are a farce, perpetrated in response to popular pressure for one-seat constituencies. One-third of candidates on lists must be women, rather than 50%, entrenching discrimination in the system,” it further points out.
According to the GHRA, for all these reasons there is no accountability between electors and those they elect. It recalled that much of the work of reform was already completed and approved by the Constitutional Reform Commission in 2001 for complete implementation by 2006. It added that when that deadline passed, complete implementation, including constituency boundaries, was enshrined in an MoU ratified formally by the major political parties and the governments of the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom and the European Union for implementation in the 2011 elections, but that became a second failed deadline.
The GHRA also proposes that a civic Constituent Assembly be created to support and accompany the parliamentary reform agenda in terms of expertise, developing proposals and conducting popular education around the reforms, the objective of which is facilitate civil society playing a role in the constitutional reform process. “The society could then, hopefully, look forward with confidence rather than dread to the next national elections,” it adds.
