At the beginning of this month President Irfaan Ali addressed the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association at the Umana Yana, saying that the foremost challenge in protecting parliamentary democracy was ensuring respect for free and fair elections. These, he told his audience, were reflective of the people’s will and represented the cornerstone of any democratic society. It was a subject of which the party he represented had had considerable experience, considering that elections here had been rigged by the PNC between 1968 and 1985, and that a second attempt had been made as recently as 2020.
No genuine democrat would have had any dispute with that, or with what he went on to say, in so far as it constituted an indirect acknowledgement that democracy was more than just free and fair elections. He is reported to have observed, for example, that it was necessary to reinforce institutions of governance, since strong, independent institutions were the backbone of a healthy democracy ensuring accountability, transparency and the rule of law. As the representative bodies of the people, parliaments had to lead by example, he said, and oversee the integrity of public institutions.
While recognizing that in most jurisdictions the system of parliamentary democracy was adversarial, the President said this did not mean that the two sides had to be enemies, or that there should be an absence of inclusion. He went on to comment that Guyana had created constitutional mechanisms to make sure there was a greater role for the opposition, citing the example of the Public Accounts Committee which is chaired by them. They also had the avenue of select committees whereby greater consensus on legislation could be achieved.
More controversially he adverted to appointments to key public offices such as the Chancellor and Chief Justice of the Judiciary here, which required agreement from the Leader of the Opposition. He went on to qualify this, however, with the remark that the consensual mechanism in this instance had led to gridlock, and that you could not always legislate political inclusion, cooperation or consensus.
The President said he believed far more could be done to promote a culture of dialogue and inclusion, and that democracy flourished where diverse voices were heard and differences were respected. Dialogue and understanding, he maintained, both within parliaments and within societies were more important than ever in an increasingly polarized world.
While there are qualifications where the local examples given by the head of state are concerned, no one would have any quarrel with the substance of what he had to say about parliamentary democracy in general. The problem is that what he and the PPP preach is not fully in consonance with what they practise. And while he is right that there are mechanisms for inclusion in our Constitution, in concert with his party he has sought largely to bypass or ignore them.
The matter of the appointments in relation to the Chancellor and Chief Justice has produced much public comment, but the President has remained unmoved. He has not consulted the Leader of the Opposition on the matter, and neither has he responded to a proposal from the latter to confirm the acting incumbents in office. And if he thinks the system is unsatisfactory, his party has made no suggestions about constitutional amendments for workable alternatives, such as an independent commission as obtains in the UK.
And where the Public Accounts Committee is concerned, until very recently its work was hindered by the PPP/C members. The ruling party had gone to Parliament and used its one-seat majority to alter the composition of a quorum, following which meetings often had to be postponed because there were insufficient members from the PPP. A whole litany of specious excuses was given for their absence, but Chairman Jermaine Figueira kept the matter in the public eye.
And as for the sectoral committees which were intended to play a role in raising accountability, these have not been functioning as they should, and one has not been established at all. Not everyone sees this as entirely the fault of the government, since the allegation has been made that the opposition too has hardly taken advantage of them. However, earlier this year the Opposition Chief Whip complained about meetings not being held by the sectoral committees. The Security Sector Oversight Committee, for instance, he said, had not met in 2021, 2022 or 2023.
For her part, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira admitted that the committees did not meet as often as they should have last year. She was hoping, she said, that they would strive towards meeting “at least once a month.” It does not sound like a convincing commitment to parliamentary accountability. But it is not just a question of the regularity of meetings; there is also the matter of the government using its majority to prevent important Bills being sent to special select committee for consultation. Such was the case with the Natural Resource Fund Bill, to cite one example.
A number of civil society organisations had asked for the passage of the legislation to be delayed so that civil society could have some input, since the government had not consulted with informed sections of the public during its drafting. That was also not entertained. Then Deputy Speaker Lenox Shuman had made the point that Parliament had only been allowed 13 days to consider an important item of legislation, and that four of those 13 were ‘holidays.’ This was for a Bill with 47 provisions. Whatever else it was, it was not a formula for genuine consultation or transparency.
For all its talk of parliamentary accountability the opposition too does not always take its responsibilities seriously. One of its worst decisions came when it walked out of the debate on the Constitution Reform Commission Bill because the Speaker would not entertain a motion brought by the Opposition Leader for an urgent debate on what he maintained was a bloated voters’ list for the local government polls.
One might have thought that the party with the greatest stake in a reformed constitution, and preliminary to that, the terms of reference for the Commission, would have been APNU. All they are doing, however, is providing evidence that they too are not fully committed to the kind of Parliament the President spoke of in such progressive terms, never mind that they are representing their constituents poorly.
There are two major problems with how our Parliament functions: one is a political problem and the other a structural one. Apart from the fact that neither of our two main parties really takes our Parliament seriously, there is the added matter of the PPP refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of the opposition in the system because of the role it played during the infamous five months of 2020.
It is true that APNU will need at some point to say its mea culpas in some form; however, the PPP/C is now in government and is required under the Constitution to deal with a political opposition, not with an ethnic group. It will not succeed in the end in trying to detach the APNU constituency from some form of opposition political party, so it is about time it brought itself into conformity with the law.
At a structural level our politicians do not take Parliament seriously. It is a part-time institution which meets relatively infrequently, and where the government rushes through important legislation with little discussion. For their part members earn their real living outside its walls. While this will not meet with approval among the wider public, for its members to become full time, they would have to be paid better and the National Assembly would have to meet on a regular basis as do many other Commonwealth parliaments.
In addition, senior members would have to be given resources – human and possibly financial ‒ for research, so they go into debates fully informed, and not spouting polemic, as happens now. True parliamentary democracy cannot be had nowadays on the cheap.
