After the opposition won the majority of seats in the National Assembly in the 2011 general elections, I was left bemused by the notion that had it taken the advice of those of my ilk and formed a pre-election arrangement with a single list, the PPP/C would have lost government. Of course, there is no certainty that this would have happened and the belief even now exists that such an alliance would have had negative electoral consequences for the Alliance For Change and that the opposition would not have obtained the majority it has had.
National and regional elections are set for early May this year and here we are again considering opposition alliance possibilities. From my standpoint, the current negotiations between APNU and the AFC are a progressive step and one can only hope that they will be fruitful.
Regardless of the posturing, the parties will only negotiate if they think that they do not have the capacity to bring about a better outcome than the negotiations is likely to produce or if negotiations are pressed upon them by sufficiently restless and powerful constituents who feel that way.
In the latter case, the actual act of negotiating may be a subterfuge that we may only be able to properly judge in retrospect and which in any case requires a clever exit strategy if it is not to rebound destructively upon its designers.
The better outcome sought by many is the removal of the PPP from government so as to be able to establish constitutional and other arrangements that will better lead to cooperative living and timely national development.
Of course, there is no certainty that even if we are in the presence of a genuine effort to form an alliance it will succeed or that if it does materialise it will be able to remove the PPP from government. The PPP may have lost some ground but it would be a mistake to believe that it will be a pushover.
I believe that a properly crafted and operationalised alliance approach that gives priority to the removal of the PPP from government has a good chance of success and I have outlined how I believe this could be done (“Opposition parties should lead a reform movement:” SN: 13/08/2014). Every opportunity must be taken to deprive the PPP of its traditional mobilisation space.
For decades, I have voiced the opinion that the PPP’s victories have rested essentially on its capacity to mobilise and get its supporters to the polls and that if the opposition could have united and properly mobilised their supporters, the PPP could have been defeated long ago.
This position was my standard response to those who sought the constitutionalisation of a shared-governance/national unity arrangement. As is well known, I am not a fan of shared-governance as is routinely proposed as I believe it holds great dangers. Yet regime longevity and the opposition’s impotence, which only became worse over time, have forced upon me the necessity of accepting, at least for a transition period, a form of shared-governance/national unity governance arrangement.
True, ethnic voting and our unique constitutional arrangement which does not give post-election coalitions much weight, have been a part of the problem but I do believe that the incapacity of the extant opposition to properly locate the difficulty and put a winning strategy together has also contributed significantly to the PPP being in office for so long.
Three years of PPP shenanigans since its 2011 loss have, in my opinion, brought home to a sizable majority of citizens, including many of the PPP’s traditional supporters, that our governance institutions need to be immediately revamped and that for its own institutional and personal security reasons the PPP’s leadership will not make such changes. The citizenry has also become aware that the opposition must win not only a majority in the National Assembly and the plurality if it is to gain government, and make the necessary changes.
One important factor that should not be missed is that while many PPP supporters may not be prepared to vote for an APNU/AFC alliance to be a normal government, given the reluctance of the PPP to support the required constitutional changes, they may be willing to vote for the alliance for the specific purpose of cleaning and rebuilding the governmental stables in the specific way it will promise and in a limited time.
Some believe that a two thirds majority is required if meaningful constitutional changes are to be made. Since the opposition is unlikely to attain such a level of support even if they win the plurality and the majority, such constitutional changes will, more likely than not, elude the new government as, at least in the short term, the PPP’s support cannot be counted upon.
But here again, we are confronted by a somewhat unique constitutional position. It appears to me that what one would have thought to be more problematical to implement and achieve has turned out in our situation to be the easier and more productive course to follow.
Political morality, history and law have established a legislative hierarchy. At the national level, the most routine rules can be made by various forms of ministerial orders, more important matters demand normal majoritarian legislation, very important matters require a super (e.g. two thirds) majority and the most important issues usually require a referendum.
Our constitution maintains this traditional hierarchy, and on my reading, article 164, which states how the constitution can be changed, allows for that article to be the changed by way of a referendum. If the opposition wins a majority and takes the government it should be able to win a normal majoritarian referendum that will allow it to change those articles of the constitution it wishes to change.
It may be asked that if the above is true, why did the opposition not use its majority in the national assembly to attempt to force constitutional change? This, I believe, is because the National Assembly is only one part of Parliament, and as we have seen in the case of the local government bills that were sent to the president and not assented to by him, a PPP minority president based on ethnic support is unlikely to sign into law any bill that seeks to rid his party of this historical advantage.
In passing, let me admit that I am on record as claiming that fundamental constitutional changes – important rules that seek to determine how we actually live and manage our affairs – should require near unanimity. I still hold to this as a general position even if our unique constitutional arrangement, rooted in an acrimonious political history, militates against our arriving at such a consensus for the immediate upcoming events.
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
