By Moses Bhagwan
If our statement that called for the establishment of a Government of National Unity, carries the implication that we stand in the way of the democratic process, then we may be guilty of misrepresenting ourselves.
The idea of a coalition government and reform of the constitution has been in active circulation for over half a century, with varying degrees of intensity and urgency. Eusi Kwayana had first proposed ‘dual premiership’ in the 1960s. An elaborate scheme for shared governance was put forward by the New World group (described by Nigel Westmaas as “a loosely organized grouping of intellectuals, educators, cultural workers, writers and activists mainly from the anglophone Caribbean or with Caribbean origins and interests” and which described itself as a “movement which aims to transform the mode of living and thinking in the region”), with Trinidadian economist Lloyd Best, Miles Fitzpatrick and David de Caires. The Committee of National Reconstruction, of which de Caires, Fitzpatrick, I and others were co-founders, prepared a draft constitution to be submitted to the 1963 London constitutional conference in London to discuss plans for Guyanese independence, held under the chairmanship of Duncan Sandys, the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Our draft provided for the institutionalization of the principle of coalition, and included a provision for a government to be formed only with the support of a two-thirds majority of the Assembly.
After the successful passage of the motion of no confidence in parliament in December 2018, I repeated this formula in a letter to the press that was carried in April 2019, four years into APNU+AFC rule. Titled ‘On a Majority of One,’ that letter reflected 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.” As I noted then, “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…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 unrest 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. If the politicians cannot deliver, then creative constitutional engineering 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 of 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 and practice of decisive governance. The government will also have access to a larger repository of the nation’s human resources and skills!”
I offer this to those who raise the issue of timing, to underline that this is not, in fact, a new position. In addition, I can only say that from the sixties, there has not been any season in which proposals for national unity have not been timely. What more timely and valid than at an explosion of fierce passions over conquest of power!
Democracy is not merely located in the unhindered operation of mechanisms of choice but in what political culture it is sustained, in what it yields in the active inclusion of all constituencies in governance and in bringing together human resources in the common cause, and again in Guyana how it prevents race in its monstrous manifestations from diminishing and threatening the foundations of our society making us all the more vulnerable as a nation.
Our elections do not make choices about national issues and programmes. They essentially and simply register the impact of the numerical strength of the two major races and the intensity of ethnic insecurity. This domination virtually makes irrelevant the participation of those who are not members, supporters or allies of the two major parties.
In a sense that is a democratic expression of choice. But this offers little more than the empowerment of the ethnic leadership and unending conflict, mistrust, instability and alienation. The rigidity of the political culture makes a mockery of the democratic spirit enshrined in the written constitution. But it offers a basis for and compulsion to negotiate on the aspirations of all ethnic communities.
Insofar as longer term solutions are pursued and promoted, we need not wait and pause for another declaration of a winner in this unrelenting cycle of alternating power between one race and another. The declaration of a winner will of course influence the rules of and the environment for engagement. In any event, the proposal for a Government of National Unity that Eusi Kwayana and I offer, was clearly premised on the lawful completion of the electoral process. And we must continue to insist that the process be lawful.