So, the President has named an election date. Or has he? It was Ms Alissa Trotz and Mr Christopher Ram who first drew attention to the fact that the naming of a day without addressing the status of the Tenth Parliament does not meet the requirements of the constitution. This was communicated by way of a letter which appeared in our Thursday edition, and was followed by a second letter on the same subject, this time from Professor Duke Pollard, that was published in this newspaper yesterday. It was brief and to the point: Article 61 of the constitution, the Professor wrote, required firstly that the appointment of the election date should be made by proclamation; and secondly that this could only be done after the dissolution of Parliament and not before or during its prorogation.
“President to sign Elections Proclamation today,” blared the banner headline on the front page of the Guyana Chronicle on Friday, but as far as anyone is aware, this did not happen. Perhaps by then it had dawned on the powers-that-be that a proclamation in the absence of a dissolution was as meaningless as the President announcing a date. The question everyone is asking, of course, is why it is that parliament has not been dissolved.
The first thing to be observed is that were the President to issue a proclamation dissolving parliament now, a general election would have to be held within three months, and May 11 falls outside that time frame. If the government is serious about the May date, therefore, its earliest option would be to dissolve parliament in something over two weeks’ time. So why is it holding out for that extra couple of weeks?
In his ‘Business’ column today, Mr Rawle Lucas alluded to the public perception that the government wants to leave parliament prorogued so it can recall it to present a budget. It was Minister of Finance Ashni Singh whose fuzzy comments gave a patina of credence to this view. However, even the government cannot be oblivious of the fact that were parliament to be recalled, there would be no Appropriation Bill because the opposition would immediately bring a motion of no confidence, and an election would have to be held within three months in any case after it was passed.
It is hard to see what the government would gain from going this route to an election, unless it wants to be seen as having reconvened parliament despite what its critics have said, and as demonstrating it is not afraid of a no-confidence vote. The opposition would then be portrayed as stymieing all moves to pass a budget in circumstances where a poll date had already been named. This may be important to the ruling party with respect to the perceptions of the foreign missions here, more especially since it has now emerged that the EU has withheld budgetary support in the absence of parliamentary oversight, etc. If that is how the PPP is thinking, then parliament would have to be recalled after February 11. Against this, however, it has to be said that as far as Dr Luncheon is concerned, the Tenth Parliament is a dead letter.
Be all of that as it may, it still has to be asked what is so special about May 11, other than the fact that it falls one day after the six months’ prorogation period comes to an end. One cannot think, however, that in petty-minded fashion the ruling party is determined to see out the six-months prorogation period no matter what; that would seem too implausible an explanation. There is the possibility, of course, that the budget is not ready yet (assuming that is the reason for the late date) and the three months’ period is being counted from when it will be.
The date does, of course, fall conveniently close to May 5, which is Indian Arrival Day, and maybe it is hoped, therefore, that election day will be associated in the mind of the PPP’s traditional constituency with the aura and events which surround that holiday. In other words it is a stratagem to keep the heartland on message, so it does not desert the cup. But could that really be the only appeal of this day in the eyes of Freedom House?
There is one strange feature about the May 11 date, and that is that some of the CSEC and CAPE examinations will be held then. Why on earth, everyone is asking, would the government want to subject CXC examinees to unnecessary inconvenience and unwarranted stress? These are the exams which can have an impact on a student’s future, added to which many financially strapped parents have made major sacrifices in order to pay the fees required by CXC. Minister of Education Priya Manickchand was reported as telling the Guyana Times that she saw it as her “sole duty to ensure that students are not disadvantaged during the period of elections.” She was, it seems, referring to issues relating to the centres to be used, since Gecom also sometimes uses schools as polling stations.
That matter can perhaps be sorted out, but she was rightly taken to task by Vidyaratha Kissoon in a letter in yesterday’s SN, in relation to her dismissiveness over the tension generated by elections here. “While most of us would wish that elections would be part of the normal part of being in a democracy,” he wrote, “they are not. The elections period is tense.” Why should the Minister of Education, of all people, not see that placing anxious children in a situation where they will become even more anxious is something to be avoided if possible. And it is eminently possible to avoid it.
There is too a practical objection to this clash. Mr Kissoon raised the matter of the 2011 election day being proclaimed a national holiday, and so, it might be added, was the one in 2006. The experience of those two polls shows that in the urban areas public transportation hardly comes out on the road. So if May 11 is to be a public holiday, how are many of these students going to be able to turn up on time at their examination centres, particularly if these are not located in their normal school of attendance? And even Ms Manickchand should know that there is a cut-off time after the start of an exam when examinees will not be allowed to write the paper and will be turned away.
For the ultra-cynical and overly suspicious among us, this could all be a sign that the PPP/C does not intend to hold the ballot on May 11 either. According to this gloomy hypothesis, the ruling party would bow ungraciously to public clamour, and postpone the date till CXC exams are finished. But then, of course, the season of annual leave would be upon us, and everyone knows it would not be advisable to hold an election in July or August, as quite a few of the party faithful (of all allegiances) will be taking their R&R in North America or wherever. Theoretically, therefore, the poll date could be pushed back to October, or even November – all of which would presume a second prorogation.
While this might not be a realistic scenario, it will become one of several such conjectures in circulation as long as the government does not straighten out a few anomalies inherent in the current situation. The easiest route for it to go is to dissolve parliament in the immediate future, and name a date in April. Easter is early this year, Easter Monday falling on April 6; and the Grade Six Assessments would have taken place before then. A date after Easter and before Indian Arrival Day would seem to suggest itself. Why didn’t it suggest itself to the ruling party before this if it didn’t want a date in early February or early March?
The problem for the PPP/C is that no one trusts its good faith any longer, and the naming of the election date has simply confirmed that. All it has succeeded in doing is giving the appearance of playing political games as usual.
