Dear Editor,
We have all heard the words “Winner take all” used to describe Guyana’s political system.
So what is a winner take all system? When I was in Parliament, I discovered that the ‘Office of the Leader of the Opposition’ was receiving a 4 million Guyana dollars annual budget subvention, which happened to be the same as for the office of the wife of the President at that time. That, clearly, was patently ridiculous.
I was in Parliament from 2006 to 2010, the amount of documentation which was given to me forced me to hire a secretary at my own expense, to keep track of it and to separate it from my Television/Evening News business. Editor, it’s a lot of work and without substantial help, no one can hope to effectively monitor it. And mostly its basically a waste of time in a winner take all system, for example I sat through four national budgets, these things consist of hundreds and hundreds of pages, which must be read, researched and debated in as little as two weeks after being tabled in the house. In the four years I was in that Parliament 2006 to 2010 I don’t remember a single change or correction being made. This is supposed to be a cricket loving nation. The phrase “it’s not cricket” is an idiomatic expression that originated in Britain and is still used today. It means that something is unfair or unsportsmanlike. How can a cricket loving nation like Guyana not understand the essentials of the game’s concept? This can’t possibly be what is acceptable to a “cricket loving” nation.
Recently after watching Mr. Glenn Lall on YouTube, I was amazed at what he has been alleging about the goings on in this country today, with our so-called investors, especially in Gold, Manganese, Bauxite and Oil. And the thought occurred to me that Mr. Glenn Lall was proving to be a more effective opposition on what is going on in this country than the actual opposition.
So I began to investigate. Our parliament has 65 seats at this time, the PPP/C occupy 33 seats the APNU+AFC occupy 31 seats and the three-party list joinder occupies 1 seat.
So the PPP actually hold a one seat majority in our parliament representing 50.768% of the voters.
Our national budget in 2023 is 781 billion Guyana dollars. This country is very large, and governance has not been as transparent as it could be, none of the institutions of government are working effectively to serve Guyanese, so for the opposition to function on behalf of its supporters, it must monitor the expenditure of $781 billion!!
The total opposition represents 49.23 % of the voting population, the government represents a little less than 51%. So now we have to ask ourselves how much money this country gives to the opposition like “the Office of the Leader of the Opposition” (OLO) to monitor the annual 781 billion Guyana dollar budget expenditure? I found out that this year the Office of the Leader of the Opposition who represents 49.23% of our population gets only 31 million Guyana dollars per year to police the expenditure of G781 billion dollars. Apparently therefore the winner does take all in Guyana, but what is more important to me is that it quite literally renders the opposition ineffectual, dissatisfied and angry. And the government still wants to know why? Taking the government to Court can cost G$4 or 5 million, you would need to man the (OLO) unit with research staff, secretaries, transportation to visit their constituents, conduct surveys, the estimate to conduct a political survey I found out, is $8 million to effectively guide a politician as to what are the main concerns of the people, incredibly, the current opposition were in power from 2015 to 2020 and did nothing to rectify this problem, i.e. they acted as if they would never be in opposition again and that their supporters are wealthy enough to financially support an effective opposition!!
Now I want to address a few thoughts on our media and the way it operates as it relates to our opposition.
In neighbouring Trinidad and Tobago in 1982 a UNC [Panday] parliamentarian Surujrattan Rambachan who was denied time on Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) to share his opposing view to the government’s position on a matter, was denied access to the station, so he took the government of Trinidad and TTT to court, alleging that the government was operating the State Media as if was owned by the party in power and not by all the members of the public, thereby depriving him [Rambachan, a legitimate member of the opposition and parliament] air time to respond to what were in his opinion, falsehoods and distortions which the government was perpetrating, and his request for air time was refused. So he and the UNC sued the PNM Government, at the end of that case the Judge, Justice Dayal Singh, ruled in 1985 (TT High Court case No. 4789 of 1982) (I have the entire ruling in case anyone is interested) that air-time on the State Owned Media should be allocated according to the amount of seats in Parliament, so today as in Guyana if the government gets 33 minutes to send its messages to the public, the opposition must get 31 minutes to send theirs. Since 1985 in TT, state-owned media were forced to operate as if owned by all the people and not just those in power, this was 38 years ago Editor!! And we still never had our opposition in this country seek to dismantle those Guyana Government propaganda machines in the Print media, the Radio and Television to level the playing field. Also, the state-owned media in this country in 2023, in what is supposed to be a free enterprise cricket loving people, are receiving massive government subventions, whilst at the same time not only depriving the opposition of a voice, but also competing unfairly with the private media in Print, Radio and Television. We should take up WWF wrestling instead, in that sport anything goes, including fraud. But again, the coalition was in power from 2015 to 2020 and failed to secure their situation. Incredible, given the economic status of their supporters.
Clearly these are not situations which can lead to peace in this country, and it has not led to peace, of all the countries in the Caribbean this country’s recent history is riddled with discontent, confrontation and violence, and so, I, since I have always been a fair person [no pun intended] think that the supporters of the party/s which is in opposition and representing 49.23 % of the population should be given the tools to effectively function on behalf of their supporters in the public media. Then they will have no excuse for not performing.
I want it to be clear, I am not writing this as a supporter of any party, I am writing this as a supporter of justice and fair play which is what I have always been advocating in this country.
Yours faithfully,
Tony Vieira