Dear Editor,
Guyana has long been lurching from one crisis to another. The vagaries of political climate change struck us once more. You could not think that one little vote could be so consequential. And you wouldn’t think that one word -majority- could make us all so confounded.
And you would think that legal sense and commonsense are good neighbours!
Now this intervention of mine on a matter that has caused disquiet, if not rancour, on all sides of the political divide, is not about the no confidence motion, per se, nor about Mr. Charrandass Persaud. It is about a word – majority – and how the political system and constitution and politicians have failed the people of Guyana.
I am asking readers to ultimately pay attention to the latter.
A great many lawyers fighting this issue cannot agree. Don’t bother, lawyers as you know are paid to disagree. But high ranking judicial personnel, four, also could not agree.
(Without adding the Hon. Speaker).
A Chief Justice, a Justice of Appeal on one side and two Justices of Appeal (including the Chancellor) on the other. As you know that irritating ‘majority of one’ crept up again in the Court of Appeal., by a ruling of two to one.
By now you know too that the word ‘majority’, a mathematical concept, is highly nuanced and comes in many forms: simple, plural, weighted, extra and even super and of course ‘absolute’. As a lawyer and citizen, having been once in Parliament and active in many organizations I know or think I know the meaning of these words and terms. (Incidentally in all my years of practice I have never had a case where this word was in contention).
But now all of us have to wait on another -the highest-level of our appellate judicial system to tell us finally what the framers of the constitution meant when they merely employed two processes, majority for all decisions but for amendment of the Constitution- a 2/3 majority, that is, a weighted or extra majority. On this question they now have to get into the minds of the framers, some now deceased, and some not domiciled in or citizens of Guyana.
The Courts may adopt precedents to resolve the issue. In the meantime let’s go to the ordinary meaning of the word.
A majority is the greater number or quantity, which in a single number or entity, is simply a part greater than half. So divide the number into halves and by adding a quantity to one half, no matter how small, the result will be a greater number or part.
An ingenious argument which is advanced in this case, is after arriving at half, in this case, 32.5 you have to round off that figure to 33, as we are dealing with Members of Parliament who are all human beings! And can’t be divided into halves like apples (except perhaps those two faced politicians who serve two masters). Now add one to get the majority (34), that is not a majority of one, but a majority of two.
Here is the problem with this. Once you have begun to add to 32.5 to reach 33 then 33 is no longer a half, but greater than a half. So by 33 you have acquired a majority. Why then add an extra 1, unless you are reaching for a weighted or extra majority!
What is an absolute majority? Here is an example. Three (or more than two) contest a position. No candidate polls more than 50% of the combined votes cast. The candidate with the greatest number is the winner by a “plurality’. If the winner however obtains more than 50% of the total votes cast, in that case, she/he then wins by an ‘absolute’ majority.
So now we have to wait, but our freedom to interpret our constitution is not yet subject to any court injunction.
However it is also worthwhile to express an opinion on the political culture, the political system, political leaders and on the relevance of the constitution as a whole, this document which has haunted us since its unnatural birth.
Whatever greater legal clarity may emerge after the hearing before the CCJ, I am of the view that the transgressions and misgovernment of the Coalition have not reached such an obnoxious level that warrants a curtailment of its tenure in office. The voting season is not far away.
The problem is that the political culture is yielding an ungovernable situation by an almost even division in the electorate. We have had a minority government and now a government with a majority of one. The country cannot bear this tension, the resulting instability and ineffectiveness in governance. It is a political absurdity of exclusionary government in a country culturally diverse and ethnically divided.
Furthermore the great challenges before us in contending with the geopolitics derived from our oil bonanza, managing an oil economy and the insidious conduct of the Venezuelan government persistently threatening our territorial integrity have made constitutional reform and reform of the nation’s political leadership, a matter of the highest importance and immediacy.
Under the circumstances forcing elections under the present constitutional arrangements and circumstances is a distraction if not an act of irresponsibility. Elections even if it raises another government will not, by that fact alone, produce conditions to make Guyana a more manageable estate. Alternating one of the behemoths for the other and inciting another form and phase of the civil strife resolve nothing.
There is another problem. With a majority of one it is an invitation to political opportunism. The greater problem is that it stifles freedom of speech and suppresses dissent in the Parliament. With a razor thin majority there is no space for revolt without bringing down the government. An occasional revolt in the ranks of the governing party is good for house cleaning.
That is why Guyana needs a broad based government that accommodates national reconciliation. The prevailing political culture and intransigent leaders have not permitted this. And we are yet to enjoy the dividends of transition to an independent nation and we languish in a political system that has put a curse on our rich diversity and breeds deformities and degeneracy and the great nation we promised to be is now a dream far away.
It is in this absence of convention and a willingness of the political leadership, that I am again hoping for a national discourse on the relevance of the present constitution. We should consider the proposal that any government formed after an election should be supported in Parliament by at least 60 percent of the Parliamentarians and of course all the implications and contingencies arising, or any other set of proposals which may address the problem. If the politicians cannot deliver then creative constitutional reform to contrive a broad coalition may be an answer.
Such a majority would mean that the racial divide would have been crossed, help to eliminate the fear of any ethnic group of exclusion from power, reduce tension and instability, give greater freedom to members of the government bench to express dissent and in the country as a whole allow more space for political mobility and the emergence of alternatives to the politics of ethnic allegiance. The government will also have access to a larger repository of the nation’s human resources and skills!
Yours faithfully,
Moses Bhagwan
