Last Monday Stabroek News reported that Dr Veerasammy Ramayya had left the AFC. He told this newspaper he had been offered an assistant position in either the Ministry of Agriculture or the Office of the Prime Minister at a salary of $180,000 a month and would be given one member of staff. He would not, however, be granted a car or a driver, and was quoted as commenting that this “… is not [an acceptable] position for me for what I have done for the party.” Alternatively, he said, it was proposed that he could return to Parliament as an MP, but he declined this too because it would have necessitated him being based in the city and would have prevented him from working effectively in Berbice.
He also registered his dissatisfaction with the fact that many Berbicians who had worked “tirelessly” for the coalition during the election campaign had not been rewarded with jobs – not even a junior minister’s post − and although this had been drawn to its attention, nothing had been done about it. “What they are doing,” he said, “is [creating jobs] for the AFC people in Georgetown…” He was reported as going on to say that he had indicated to party leader Mr Khemraj Ramjattan that he no longer wanted to be part of the AFC, and when asked by our reporter what the reaction was, Dr Ramayya responded that Mr Ramjattan remained quiet, and seemed as if he didn’t care.
It might be remarked that the AFC leader probably stayed quiet because there was nothing he could say; the allocation of positions in the current governmental arrangements simply does not lie within his power. In fact, Mr Ramayya’s departure in an odd way exposes a fundamental problem within the current coalition, viz, it has a very tenuous foundation. It did not emerge out of a common political ethos or even a comprehensive suite of common policies; its one unifying factor was a shared objective to persuade the electorate to vote out the PPP/C. The electorate has done so, and now there is no strong adhesive to hold the disparate parts together.
There is, it is true, a commitment on the part of both APNU and the AFC to the rule of law, accountability and good governance, and certainly, if the coalition does institutionalize structures which ensure transparency and regularity in the management of the public accounts and related matters, it would be a major achievement. Good governance, however, can be a vague concept unless it is broken down into a series of practical measures, and is insufficient as a principle on its own to bind parties together. It will inevitably be overtaken by less lofty considerations as seems to be the case in the instance of Dr Ramayya.
The AFC finds itself in the same position as all small parties locked in cohabitation with a larger one, namely, its bigger partner will tend to occupy all the political space. This was to some extent foreseen, and was mainly the reason for the emphasis on which posts – and how many – should go to whom in the Cummingsburg Accord. This agreement notwithstanding, the President has managed to manoeuvre around it to create ministerships for members of his party several of which are utterly superfluous. However, the PNCR segment of APNU could clearly apply the same principle as the one which Dr Ramayya is now utilizing on his side – that their people have been loyal and hard-working and deserve posts in government. In addition, of course, they will simply prefer the argument that it was APNU which supplied the bulk of the votes and which therefore deserves more ‘jobs’. It might be added that in these kinds of calculations, there would have been no consideration given to which geographical area the candidates originated from.
In our fractious highly competitive political atmosphere, the lure of power is hard to resist. It is perhaps too a function of the small size of the society, where among other things political leaders of all parties are not remote figures to the rank and file; a large number of people in fact, know one or more politicians personally. Given too that Guyana even now reflects something of a patronage situation, it is not unusual for citizens of all classes to approach a party for help and/or favours. At least in their heyday, both the large parties in this country functioned in part as a kind of social support system for their constituents. That aside, inevitably, the ambition is to be a ‘patron’ rather than a supplicant, or even just a nonentity within a party, and there is no sense that one individual may be more suited to a post or more competent in a field than another.
Dr Ramayya also unintentionally perhaps, put his finger on another problem, which is the centralized nature of the governmental structure, something which was exacerbated under the previous regime. His desire to serve in Berbice would have been best accommodated through local government, which hopefully will be reinvigorated by local government elections later this year. Not surprisingly, at the central government level there is a limit to the number of posts available, especially for the AFC – although as mentioned earlier, President Granger has stretched these to the limit.
The context of all of this is the fact that neither the PPP nor the PNCR has recognized that given the demographics, they cannot win an overall majority on their own for very much longer. To be more precise about it, the PNCR – even in its APNU format – will not be winning another election (including that due in 2020) on its own in the foreseeable future. The PPP, on the other hand, might conceivably win an overall majority in the next poll if the coalition collapses, or if the AFC is seen to be overwhelmed by APNU and loses its support as the Liberal Democrats did in the May 8 British election after being in coalition with the Conservatives. The crystal ball is telling both parties, however, that coalition politics is the immediate future in one case, and the longer term future in both cases, but it seems they are resistant to accepting this.
As it is, our constitution is very unsuited to coalition arrangements, and the Cummingsburg Accord, which Mr Ralph Ramkarran has declared dead, was always too flimsy a covenant on which to ground de facto constitutional changes. He has recommended that the coalition go ahead with fundamental changes to the constitution, which it could then put to the country in a referendum, since the PPP is unlikely to supply the necessary two-thirds majority for its passage in the National Assembly. Whether the coalition has the single-mindedness and determination to take this course remains to be seen, added to which, one would have to wonder whether the PNCR, now that it is in office, really wants the kind of major changes it was prepared to entertain when out of government.
Dr Ramayya’s complaint, while of a personal nature, nevertheless raises a warning for both the AFC and APNU. He did not, it appears, support the move to coalition, but went along with the party once the deal was done. There may be many others who voted for the coalition with reluctance but who are watching how arrangements play out with some level of scepticism in their minds. They will not be concerned about the fact they will not get a government post, or that Berbicians are under-represented in the administration, but they will be waiting to see if the AFC retains some influence and identity within the coalition, and if the promises will be kept. The AFC runs the risk of going the way of the Liberal Democrats, as mentioned above, while APNU runs the risk of not being able to return to office for a very long time to come.