On 16 November 2011, I said, “Of the major parties, I am left with A Partnership for National Unity, which has adumbrated a position that comes closest to my demands. As I understand it, should APNU win office, it is ‘committed to the establishment of a Government of National Unity, which would have as its priority the …. Constitutional and institutional reforms necessary for the realisation of Shared Governance’, and the party proposes to do this ‘during the first two years of the first term of the Government of National Unity.” (‘Why I support the APNU’ SN: 16/11/2011).
In 2011, Guyana’s plurality and post elections rules prevented APNU from winning government but in its 2015 manifesto, the APNU+AFC coalition made similar commitments and I supported that coalition. The coalition has failed to fulfill this vital commitment that would have constitutionally secured its constituency a place in future governments, most likely made the no-confidence vote that brought it down unnecessary and given Guyana a better chance to flourish. After more than a decade of pleading, recently the Carter Center once again called upon the political elite to quickly make constitutional changes to establish an inclusive system that reforms the ‘winner-take-all’ election system currently in use (SN: 20/02/2020).
For the vast majority of Guyanese the most important subject today is which party is likely to take government after the 2 March 2020 elections, and regardless of whether the PPP/C or the coalition wins, there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth. This has not been good for ethnic unity or development but the situation persists for the same reason Guyana has concluded oil agreements that are universally accepted as disadvantageous. An ignorance (not knowing that one does not know and giving priority to gut feelings over scientific method) largely rooted in self interestedness that fails to get or take expert advice. Particularly to provide a broad but sound orientation for that section of the electorate that is not tied to one of the two ethnic parties to understand more clearly the way forward for Guyana, what follows are verbatim extracts from Professor Arendt Lijphart, a foremost consociational expert on constitution making in ethnically divided societies (file:///C:/Users/Owner/OneDrive/SG/ lijphart%20Constitutional_ Design.pdf).
‘Over the past half-century, democratic constitutional design has undergone a sea change. After the Second World War, newly independent countries tended simply to copy the basic constitutional rules of their former colonial masters, without seriously considering alternatives. …. In my opinion, scholarly experts can be more helpful to constitution writers by formulating specific recommendations and guidelines … This essay presents a set of such recommendations, focusing in particular on the constitutional needs of countries with deep ethnic and other cleavages. In such deeply divided societies the interests and demands of communal groups can be accommodated only by the establishment of power sharing. ….
Power sharing denotes the participation of representatives of all significant communal groups in political decision making, especially at the executive level …. Agreement (on this issue) extends far beyond the consociational school. A good example is Ted Robert Gurr, who in ‘Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts’ … based on massive empirical analysis reaches the conclusion that the interests and demands of communal groups can usually be accommodated “by some combination of the policies …. institutions of autonomy and power sharing.” ….
The strength of the power-sharing model has also been confirmed by its frequent practical applications. Long before scholars began analyzing the phenomenon of power-sharing democracy in the 1960s, politicians and constitution writers had designed power-sharing solutions for the problems of their divided societies (for example, in Austria, Canada, Colombia, Cyprus, India, Lebanon, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Switzerland). Political scientists merely discovered what political practitioners had repeatedly—and independently of both academic experts and one another—invented years earlier.
The power-sharing model has received a great deal of criticism since it became a topic of scholarly discourse three decades ago. Some critics have argued that power-sharing democracy is not ideally democratic or effective; others have focused on methodological and measurement issues. But it is important to note that very few critics have presented serious alternatives to the power-sharing model. One exception can be found in the early critique by Brian Barry, who in the case of Northern Ireland recommended “cooperation without cooptation”—straightforward majority rule in which both majority and minority would simply promise to behave moderately. Barry’s proposal would have meant that Northern Ireland’s Protestant majority, however moderate, would be in power permanently, and that the Catholic minority would always play the role of the “loyal” opposition. … This is a primitive solution to ethnic tensions and extremism, and it is naive to expect minorities condemned to permanent opposition to remain loyal, moderate, and constructive. Barry’s suggestion therefore cannot be—and, in practice, has not been—a serious alternative to power sharing.
The only other approach that has attracted considerable attention is Donald L. Horowitz’s proposal to design various electoral mechanisms (especially the use of the “alternative vote” or “instant runoff”) that would encourage the election of moderate representatives. It resembles Barry’s proposal in that it aims for moderation rather than broad representation in the legislature and the executive, except that Horowitz tries to devise a method to induce the moderation that Barry simply hopes for. If applied to the Iraqi Governing Council, Horowitz’s model would generate a body consisting mainly of members of the Shi’ite majority, with the proviso that most of these representatives would be chosen in such a way that they would be sympathetic to the interests of the Sunni and Kurdish minorities. … Horowitz’s alternative-vote proposal suffers from several other weaknesses, … (but) The main point that is relevant here is that it has found almost no support from either academic experts or constitution writers. … Horowitz’s arguments do not seem to have sparked a great deal of assent or emulation.
In sum, power sharing has proven to be the only democratic model that appears to have much chance of being adopted in divided societies, which in turn makes it unhelpful to ask constitution writers to contemplate alternatives to it. … The most important choice facing constitution writers is that of a legislative electoral system, ….(and) there is a scholarly consensus against majoritarian (winner takes all) systems in divided societies. As Larry Diamond explains: ‘If any generalization about institutional design is sustainable it is that majoritarian systems are ill-advised for countries with deep ethnic, regional, religious, or other emotional and polarizing divisions. Where cleavage groups are sharply defined and group identities (and intergroup insecurities and suspicions) deeply felt, the overriding imperative is to avoid broad and indefinite exclusion from power of any significant group.’
Hopefully, the above will facilitate a more progressive electoral outcome, so that after the joy has evaporated and the tears have been shed, despondency and hopelessness will not abound.
But whatever the result of the elections, do not be tempted to turn upon your neighbour but simply ponder the opportunities that have been opened up or been missed and what must come next given the kind of political leadership we have and the society in which we live.
