Dear Editor,
I welcome Mr Hydar Ally’s frankness in his letter in the Stabroek News of November 20, 2014, under the caption ‘In politics two or more minorities do not make a majority.’ It helps discussion of one of the conflicts of Guyanese electoral politics. It is in the candid spirit of the Guyana Chronicle editorial of August 1, 2007, though of a different flavour.
He reminded readers of the 1961 elections. He said that the PPP won 47 per cent of the popular vote and obtained 57 per cent of the seats. On the other hand, Dr Jagan claimed the PPP’s share as 42.6 per cent of the votes cast in 1961.The writer must have seen this unequal distribution of seats as an entitlement of the top scorer, the winner, that is, the “plurality.”
In the 1961 election the PPP won one seat for every 5, 463 votes it received and 20 seats. The PNC with 40 .9 per cent of the electorate won one seat for every 8,797 votes it received and 11 seats. There was the third party, the United Force, with 16.3 per cent of the votes that won a seat for every 6, 653 votes it received and got 4 seats. The 1961 voting system before PR gave an advantage to the PPP. It got more than the voters gave to it. One vote for the PPP secured more representation than one vote for any other party.
The analyst argues in his letter that the top scorer (plurality) is the real majority even though the combined votes of others are greater than the top scorer’s total. This is a kind of divine right of the plurality. It is not a comforting doctrine.
In 2006 the PPP won 54 per cent of the popular vote, gaining most from the uninvestigated disturbances in which the State was also active. It formed the government. The legal right of the PPP to form the 2006 government was not challenged on any legal ground. Even those who had expected a “shared government” took it in their stride. It was under PR and it was not disputable. Even a talkative old man like me raised no issue of the constitutional status of the government which chose to form a one-party cabinet.
Mr Ally did not use 2006 as his model, strangely. We ignore the fact that expert opinion said the PPP unfairly got one seat too many from the results and that one should have gone to the AFC. He used 1961 to affirm the right of the PPP as a “plurality” to rule whether it won an overall majority under the old first-past-the-post system, or just the plurality as under the PR system in 2011. I defend his right to defend the rights of the plurality, although I strongly disagree with his opinion.
However, when he seeks to reduce his preference, and to support the proroguing of the National Assembly by creating an arithmetical rule, problems follow. The article providing for the election of the president (177) allows the winner of a plurality to become president. This provision supports his claim, “In politics two or more minorities or do not make a majority.” But this Ally rule does not hold true everywhere and in every case, even in politics.
The article that provides for a no confidence motion, which the opposition parties in their wisdom have been promoting, does not depend on a plurality.
It reads:
“106 (6)—The cabinet including the President shall resign if the Government is defeated by a majority of the votes of all the elected members of the National Assembly on a vote of confidence ….”
But the Ally rule prevailed, as the PPP would say, “through the back door.” The plurality allowed the President to be elected. He used his presidential right to prorogue the Assembly and thus assure the world that he is at one with the Mr Burnham who had ruled out any vote of confidence. Their supporters regard them “astute.”
Mr Ramon Gaskin argued that the tabling of the no-confidence vote was evidence of loss of confidence in the government, especially, in my opinion, as crossing the floor is officially frowned on by the major political parties.
President Ramotar has no constitutional veto over a motion of the National Assembly. He can veto only bills on certain conditions. Yet he in effect vetoed the no confidence motion against his Minister of Home Affairs, signalling to the ministers that they did not have to respect the people’s representatives and, anticipating the Ally doctrine that the plurality is the majority in fact, if not in arithmetic or law.
Politically then, the act of proroguing the National Assembly was a preventive veto against the pestilence of a no-confidence vote aimed at restoring the immunity from the sanction of the President Burnham years.
Mr Ally had deplored the lack of political maturity in the opposition parties taking control of the positions of Speaker and Deputy Speaker and the composition of certain committees. I had similar feelings but was faced with the fact that the minority President had set the example by appointing an all PPP cabinet, thus making political maturity old fashioned.
Yours faithfully,
Eusi Kwayana
