The membership of the Alliance for Change (AFC) best represents the political dysfunction it was established to fix: disillusioned PPP/C and PNCR supporters with different empathies and perhaps even different notions of right and wrong, and once the African PNCR hijacked the AFC those schisms diverged and ultimately clashed, and thus we have the case of Mr. Charrandas Persaud (AFC: hijacked. SN: 08/11/2017).
Mr. Persaud lived in the sugar belt and one of the most offensive acts of the coalition government and the clearest sign of the lack of empathy for those of Indian ethnicity occurred when it threw 7000 sugar workers on the breadline with the bogus claim that such an extreme act was necessary to reform the sugar industry. I argued (SN: 13/12/2017) that ‘One must have to be a dolt to believe that the treatment at present being meted out to the sugar workers is because the country cannot afford to keep them at work. One only needs to ask oneself if these workers would have been treated in this manner had the PPP/C been in government, to which the answer would be a resounding no’, and the country would not have been significantly worse off. While reform of the industry is badly needed, the reform process needed to be done with a human face and that is partly what came back to haunt the coalition in the form of Charrandas Persaud, who on a daily basis had to live amidst the resulting squalor.
Nonetheless, Mr. Persaud’s behaviour raises some very interesting ethical questions of which we should at least be aware. When someone claims that they have acted in accordance with their conscience, their moral sense of right and wrong, there is a tendency for us to automatically speak as if the mere fact of doing so is a good in itself. But, take this hypothetical situation. I joined your group because I believed that those in authority who are of my ethnicity were endangering people of your ethnicity and this for me was not right. My public and open participation helped you to oust my people and now in power you are acting just as badly towards my people! How should I morally behave? What would constitute the correct moral approach? Should I confront you privately about your wrong behaviour and if you fail to take heed, publicly work and possibly encourage others to work for your removal? Or should I stealthily engineer your removal to liberate my people but most likely again endanger yours?
The above questions are only for contemplation, but they help us to understand why, for half the country, Mr. Persaud’s act of conscience is an act of treachery and would perhaps have been viewed by this same half as even more pernicious if it had been done in a similar manner by an African. What is certain is that in acting the way he did in an open manner he has helped to increase African suspicions of Indians and further widen the ethnic divide, and this cannot be good for Guyana.
Added to the above, the 18th century Irish philosopher Edmund Burke has left us with the belief that a member of parliament is not a delegate directed by his constituency on how to vote on given issues but is a representative who is required to assess the situation and vote according to his/her conscience, i.e. his/her personal belief of what is right or wrong or good or bad. On certain issues and in certain contexts this could be a quite dangerous path to follow. Even in what we call mature democracies, people can come to bodily harm for doing what they believe to be right. In the United Kingdom, one of the oldest democracies the MP Jo Cox lost her life to some crazy because she did not support Brexit, and the harmful possibilities multiply in ethnically infused conditions such as Guyana.
Some believe that if you choose the political life you must be prepared to take risks, and to some extent I accept this, for I understand that democratic politics is about openness, transparency and accountability and that one of the important features of a democratic system must be that relevant stakeholders know how their representatives will vote on various issues. However, while war might be an extension of politics, politics is not war and where possible, to the degree considered appropriate, representatives should be sheltered by making some of their decisions secret.
Largely for the reasons explained above, secret ballots in parliamentary votes abound. For example, the European Union has recently introduced them to protect MEPs voting on its budget for fear that they might come under undue pressure from their government. In 2017, the Speaker of the South African parliament claimed that the rules of parliament did not give her a discretion as to whether or not to allow for a secret ballot in a confidence vote brought against President Jacob Zuma. The country’s highest court stated that the separation of powers prevented it from making a decision about what should take place in parliament but ruled that the speaker did have the discretion, and she did allow a secret ballot. Earlier this month, British Prime Minister, Teresa May, had to face a secret confidence vote of her own party MPs, which she won handsomely, but if she had lost it would have meant that she would have had to immediately resign.
Whatever we may think of Mr. Persaud’s behaviour, in our context a secret ballot on the no confidence motion would have been better for national unity and his personal safety. One should not have to choose between silence and exile, and this is one more issue for a future constitutional reform process.
I feel no sympathy for the coalition government, only alarm at how easily it fell into the majoritarian trap that was set for it, and for all its braggadocio it is now in the process of possibly endangering the fundamental interest of its constituents which it was elected to constitutionally safeguard. Yet all is not lost for, in 1997, as a result of disturbances inspired by the PNC, two years were sliced from Ms. Janet Jagan’s presidency and the PPP/C also had to undertake substantial constitutional reforms but still went on to rule for about another fourteen years. However, one must hope that APNU now understands what it is to live the precarious life and that it is morally disgraceful to seek to base one’s political longevity on the insecurities of others.
Mr. Charrandas Persaud’s action has given rise to an earlier than expected elections, and taking a cue from the PPP/C experience after two years were sliced from Janet Jagan’s presidency, many politicians and their acolytes are already trying to find ways to substantially delay those elections. The PPP/C failed, largely because Desmond Hoyte succeeded in holding its feet to ‘more fire’. Thus, if the president’s nice-sounding statement immediately after the confidence vote about its opening new possibilities and that he will be consulting with his coalition partners and the leader of the opposition is to have any meaning, the period leading up to the elections will have to be carefully designed and managed.
