The Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo, told the press that he and Minister of Social Cohesion, Minister Amna Ally, with the objective of resolving the political impasse that occurred as a result of the PPP and APNU obtaining an equal number of seats in five NDCs and one township elections, had agreed that the mayor and chairs of the NDCs should rotate annually. According to Jagdeo, he was told that President Granger had approved the agreement. He further asserted that the decision was revoked by the Government, which proposed that three of the six bodies should be led by APNU and three by the PPP. Minister Bulkan made no comment on the alleged agreement but appeared to have confirmed the Government’s position of three/three. He said that since the PPP rejected the compromise he proceeded to appoint APNU members as heads of all six bodies.
No one should be surprised that our two main political parties cannot agree on anything. In relation to regional elections the parties tried on two occasions in the past to cooperate without success. In 1994 the parties agreed to share the position of the mayor of Georgetown. When the PPP’s turn came the PNC reneged on the agreement. In the 2006 regional elections the parties obtained an equal number of seats in Region 7. An agreement to share the post of chair was discarded by the PNCR when the elections for chair took place a few days later. It is to the credit of the PPP that even with these experiences it sought to address the current impasse by compromise.
It should not be assumed that the quest for political dominance resides only with APNU. Dominance, not compromise, rules Guyana’s politics. It is so ingrained in our political culture that it can be taken to illogical levels. When the PPP won the government with only a plurality of votes in the 2011 elections, it was assumed that the natural outcome would have been a coalition government, as it would have been in any other part of the