Dear Editor,
The 2019 Budget debates are now behind us. The debates were for the most part lively and at times heated but in the end it provided an opportunity for the Guyanese people to listen to opposing views from both sides of the political divide.
I am subject to correction but I think this is the first budget since the return of democracy on October 1992 in which the House is being bifurcated into two opposing groups, namely the ruling APNU+AFC and the opposition PPP/C. In all previous parliaments, there were other parties which at varying periods were represented in parliament by smaller parties such as The United Force, the WPA, the Guyana Action Party and the Alliance for Change.
With the formation of the APNU+AFC coalition prior to the May 2015 elections, all the smaller parliamentary opposition parties have now been subsumed under the broad umbrella of the governing APNU+AFC coalition.
One consequence of this development is the tendency at the parliamentary level to see the budget, as it were, in black and white terms. Given the above context, there is hardly room for any intermediate shade. Both sides of the divide are expected to sing from their respective hymn books. The ruling coalition is expected not only to justify but to glorify every dollar in the Estimates while the opposition party is expected to do the opposite.
Herein lies our dilemma. There is no way in which opposing views can be reconciled. For all practical purposes, the government will use its one-seat majority to get its way at the Committee of Supply level. Interrogation of the budgetary estimates at the sectoral level is reduced to a mere formality.
This is why there is need for a new constitutional arrangement which should allow for post-elections alliances, where parties in any coalition arrangement can be free to maintain their independence even if they become a part of the government. This is the essence of true representative democracy.
With General and Regional Elections under two years from now, it is highly unlikely that there could be any constitutional reforms along such lines but I believe it is a necessary step in the direction of more accountable and hopefully participatory governance.
In this regard, I remain convinced that the current model of ‘winner takes it all’ has been to a large extent counterproductive and not in our best national interest.
Yours faithfully,
Hydar Ally
