What a difference a year makes. A little over twelve months ago the government lost a no-confidence vote in Parliament. It was totally unanticipated; if the governing party had any inkling they might not win, they would have postponed the scheduling of the vote until the leader of APNU had replaced the suspected would-be defector. As it was, the members were taken completely off guard, although that notwithstanding their first instinct following their defeat was the correct one, with both the President and Prime Minister announcing they would respect the result. It was not long, however, before they had second thoughts, and it is those second thoughts which have caused the inhabitants of this nation considerable stress over the past year, and which have brought us to the confusing position we find ourselves in currently.
Whatever one might think of Mr Charrandass Persaud’s behaviour, and many people would not regard it as reflecting honourable conduct, the outcome of the vote was technically legal. But the government chose to clutch at straws and challenge it on legal grounds nonetheless. The problem was those grounds were so flimsy that in the case of their argument about what constituted a majority, for example, even the ordinary person in the street who had never opened a law book in their life considered it nonsense.
As it was, the government’s case plus the various associated cases they were required to defend, made it all the way to the Caribbean Court of Justice, at great cost to the Guyanese taxpayer, it might be added. However, even after that court handed down its final judgement on June 18, President David Granger still did not name an election date within the three-month period the constitution requires. (The election should have been held before March 21 but the court cases intervened.) The critical date was allowed to pass, and the Head of State continued to temporize until he could no longer resist the pressure, particularly from international sources. It was not until September 29 that he finally issued a proclamation, however, and even then it was for five months ahead on March 2, 2020.
Among other things, the government has not been operating in a caretaker capacity as the court has required it to do, and in addition it has been sheltering behind the dubious defence that the CCJ issued no coercive orders. President Granger’s main weapon for delay has been Gecom, whose aberrations in terms of decision-making cause the eyes of the average Guyanese to glaze over in weariness. The problem is that the President’s penchant for procrastination revealed itself long before the infamous no-confidence vote last year. It was apparent in the failure to appoint judges, but most particularly in the matter of the appointment of the Gecom chair. Eventually Mr Granger unilaterally installed the elderly, retired Justice James Patterson, an appointment the CCJ was to deem unconstitutional. His successor, however, this time taking up her position in accordance with the constitution, has not brought clarity or reason to a contentious and untenable situation.
The President promotes himself as abiding by the law and adhering to court decisions, but one does not need to be a legal counsel to recognise that his readings of these are usually quite insupportable. They are intended as a fig leaf to justify delaying tactics of one kind or another. The question is what the purpose of the deferral is. This approach certainly on the face of it would not have redounded to the Head of State’s advantage this year. Had he accepted the result of the no-confidence vote in the first instance, it would have removed the sting from his opposition critics who claimed that the PNC, even in its APNU incarnation, was still contaminated by its record of electoral fraud. It would have demonstrated in an obvious way what nothing else could have done, i.e. that the PNCR had come into the democratic fold and had exorcised its past.
As it is, with all the manipulation, dissimulation and misrepresentation, it has just cemented the conviction in the minds of some already suspicious segments of the population, that the coalition will try to hang on to power at all costs. That it is trying to hang on to power there can be no doubt, what is in question is whether it is ‘at all costs.’ Even before December last year the opposition was accusing the government of planning to rig the election. It would seem very unlikely, however, that in this day and age the PNCR could replicate what was done in a previous era without stirring up an international outcry and becoming a rogue administration. In fact, a tainted election at any level would put it beyond the pale internationally and impede its ability to function. This of course does not mean to say it is not doing everything it can to see the system works to its advantage as far as it can get away with that, even where it involves a deviation from strict adherence to the rules. That much at least there is evidence of.
The government’s actions this year have most likely served to alienate any floating voters who in 2015 lent their support to the AFC, in addition to which disunity and discord in the society have intensified. It is not as if either the government has distinguished itself on any front – not crime, not education, not the economy, not the oil contracts, etc. So what has it been hanging on for?
The answer is probably the same as it was prior to the no-confidence vote; that is to say, it wanted the benefit of oil to kick in, in order to be associated with this novel development. It simply did not want the first well to produce its offering under a PPP/C administration. And now we have First Oil, although it is hardly going to transform the society between this point and March 2.
The coalition is probably deluding itself if it believes the population is so naïve as to think that because First Oil has arrived, the government should get kudos.
The coalition has come under sustained criticism over the oil contracts, local content and the lack of a regulatory framework for the new industry, something of which many voters will be aware. In fact, a cynical electorate probably does not trust either of the big parties with managing the oil sector competently or even honestly.
What everyone wants now is a quiet, peaceful election and pre-election season. That would be greatly facilitated if Gecom Chair Claudette Singh follows the letter of the law and adopts a rational approach to the confusion in the commission, for some of which she is responsible; if the government stops playing tiresome political games; and if Mr Bharrat Jagdeo minds his language.
