Part2
Introduction
Last week, in Part 1 of this four-part series of columns I had argued that the proximate or immediately preceding factor driving the several ongoing crises and threatening contradictions in Guyana (starkly symbolized in the presidential prorogation of the National Assembly on November 10, 2014) has been the uncontrolled torrent of financial abuses, irregularities, and lawlessness perpetrated by the PPP/C executive since the November 2011 elections. As we know, those elections had resulted in the PPP/C administration dependent on a minority in the National Assembly.
In support of this proposition I catalogued the ten most egregious of these financial abuses. They range from the executive’s purposeful establishment of illicit slush funds along with its repeated unauthorized spending of public monies, to the irregular and illegal use of state agencies to intimidate individuals and “group-affiliated government critics” as well as to penalize those private businesses that are not supporting the ruling PPP/C administration, or worse, might be in support of the parliamentary opposition.
Following these observations, it can be confidently asserted that the PPP/C government has exhausted the limits of its minority status arising out of the 2011 elections.
12Hemmed in by a legislature it cannot control, and in particular that body’s persistent efforts to contain financial abuses, the ruling cabal infused with authoritarian and criminal admixtures, when faced with a no-confidence motion it could not win, true to its instincts resorted to further excursions into lawlessness and undermining of the constitution.
Main proposition
My main proposition in this series of columns is that, consequent to the above developments, the ongoing criminalization of the Guyana state (about which I have previously theorized at length years ago in my Sunday columns) has given rise to two added deformations or changes for the worse to those highlighted in my earlier formulation of the Guyana state as a vehicle for promoting criminal endeavours.
However, before identifying them and pursuing this line of analysis further, I must first indicate three basic postulates which inform the analysis.
Three postulates
First, while I am no legal luminary, commonsense (together with long experience in the social sciences) tells me that no constitution (including Guyana’s) written as recently as the last quarter of the 20th century would seek to empower an executive (in our case the presidency) – without formidable and expressly stated restraints beyond the reach of the presidency – to quash a legislature (in our case the National Assembly) intent on openly securing debate on a motion of no confidence brought against the executive in office, as permitted by the very constitution!
Whether I am legally correct or not in this interpretation of the constitution, this matter is so grave that it should be adjudicated in Guyana’s courts at all costs, including the Caribbean Court of Justice. Indeed, similar to my earlier pronouncement on the imperative of constitutional reform at this stage of Guyana’s evolution, remedy in the courts on this matter is vital for resolving whether or not the authoritarian forces of the criminal state will remain unbounded under the legally unchallenged protection of the constitution.
The second postulate is that the publication of the Attorney General’s (AG) taped conversation with a Kaieteur News (KN) reporter, which immediately preceded the prorogation marks significant changes for the worse in the operation of the Guyana state, by way of utterances made public and attributed to one of the state’s most senior political officials!
Those changes for the worse are firstly, the AG’s invocation of threats and the spectre of extra- judicial sanction against a newspaper, basically because it has been critical of the PPP/C administration. (Readers should note a particularly heinous aspect of this behaviour, namely, the exalted legal position the AG occupies.)
Another deformation is also captured in the AG’s taped statements implicating the presidency in a conversation about the use of a state agency (Guyana Revenue Authority). I term this the Nandlall version of the hubris- syndrome of deviant behaviour referred to in the political science literature.
The third postulate is that prorogation has objectively facilitated the further entrenchment of executive financial lawlessness, abuse and irregularity. To begin with, it means that if opposition surveillance of the executive’s financial misbehaviour has been constrained within a functioning National Assembly, then it is likely to be much more ineffective following its prorogation.
Furthermore, prorogation of the National Assembly quashes ongoing financial matters before the Assembly; principally in this regard are Financial Paper 1 of 2014 and possibly others related to unauthorized and excess expenditures for 2014, as well as withdrawals from the Consolidated Fund; the laying of the 2013 public accounts for audit; and the Anti -Money Laundering & Countering of Financial Terrorism Act (AML&CFT). As a consequence prorogation diminishes oversight and control of the executive.
State terrorism
My proposition is that, whether taken together or separately, these three postulates signify the worsening of authoritarian rule. In the language of radical political economy the Guyana state is now operating as a ‘state-for-itself.’ That is, it is primarily geared to function as an instrumentality for the accumulation of wealth for those who operate it.
As this process unfolds, however, the Guyana state takes on two added characterizations. First, the ruling cabal feels increasingly isolated and driven to the use of (and threat of use) of state terror as part of its political armoury. Second, given the small size and limited public wealth of Guyana there is the ever present threat of the exhaustion of state resources readily available for plunder as the government struggles to ensure the viability of the economy, the preservation of macroeconomic balance and keeping the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) at bay. The ruling cabal then resorts to placing Guyana’s natural resources up for fire sale.
Next week I shall develop the analysis of these two deformations or changes for the worse.
[Sunday Stabroek apologises for the non-appearance of Prof Clive Thomas’s column last week; it is reproduced above.]
