Notwithstanding all the opposition talk of seeking to create a new political culture in Guyana, its recent antics are as old as the hills, but the PPP/C is not without fault and should not use the opposition’s faux pas to prevent us from moving forward in a timely and efficacious manner.
The PPP/C has historically cultivated, and many in its constituency harbour, a high level of distrust of the PNC and now APNU and any action that is or could be construed as demonstrating unreliability/untrust-worthiness on the part of these groups should be avoided.
The PPP/C is correct in its claim that the opposition has behaved in an unprincipled manner in bypassing the tripartite process in the discourse about the speakership and in hogging both the speakership and deputy speakership for itself. This could have far-reaching consequences depending on how the PPP/C decides to go forward, and one must hope that it leans towards a national position rather than the partisan one to which has been more historically inclined.
In ignoring the tripartite framework for the first important discourse that should have taken place within it, the opposition appears oblivious of the consequences of its actions. It continues to talk of its intention to work cooperatively with the tripartite process and wanting to have a part in the formulation of the budget without seeming to recognise that it has put this type of cooperation in jeopardy. Indeed, there are those in the PPP/C who are already claiming that the opposition behaviour has confirmed the historic contention that its call for shared governance is opportunistic and largely the result of a hunger for power. At the first chance it has been given to “take all” it has done so in the very fashion for which, over the years, it has been denouncing the PPP/C.
In the present context, in relation to the opposition the government commands significant positive and negative power whereas the opposition has essentially negative, preventative, power and few resources. For example, in relation to the demand to be part of the budgetary process, whatever that means, the government has rightly claimed that it is its duty to present a budget to the National Assembly and the task of the National Assembly to make the changes it deems necessary. Of course, it is in the dispensation of the government to take a more liberal position that would allow greater opposition participation, even at initial stages such as the discourse about resource availability and priority setting. The opposition simply does not have and in the immediate future will not have the capacity to do this on its own or in the face of PPP/C obstructionism. Given what has occurred over the speakership and knowing the orientation of the PPP/C, we have already seen the negative response of the regime to the opposition demand.
Some will argue that the PPP/C is not known for its liberalism and had already indicated its intention to refuse opposition participation in the budgetary process. This kind of response misses the point. It is also the duty of the opposition to attempt to foster a more collaborative framework and is certainly not its work to mirror what it has consistently denounced as the backward posture of the PPP/C. There will be time enough for that in the event of it being consistently rebuffed. What the current opposition approach has done is leave the PPP/C sufficient space to claim the moral high-ground.
As stated above, the government has far more concrete assets than the collective opposition and the institutionalisation of a broader tripartite discourse might well therefore be of greater benefit to the opposition than the position of deputy speaker, which in our practice has traditionally gone to the minority in the National Assembly and should have been offered to the PPP/C. The contention that the president formed his cabinet without consulting the opposition is beside the point. Neither in law nor tradition is the president of a minority parliamentary party obliged to consult with the parliamentary majority so long as he believes that he will be able to overcome a confidence vote in the National Assembly. It is also said that the opposition needed both positions because as a practising attorney, Mr. Trotman might find it impossible to be in the national assembly on important occasions! Whether this will prove to be the case remains to be seen but the less said about this line of reasoning the better!
Discussion in the tripartite process does not mean that one needed to accept the government’s erroneous position on the speaker, but if one is part of a collaborative arrangement the way to proceed cannot be to simply make unilateral, public statements about the unacceptability of the PPP/C candidate. In the tripartite discourse, one must listen to the PPP/C presentation of its case and reject or accept it with reasonable explanations, of which there are many.
The PPP/C has contributed to this situation with its false claim that in Commonwealth parliaments the speaker must come from the government side. I have already refuted this (“PPP/C position on Speaker pure propaganda:” SN: 28/12/11), but the recent experience in Canada, where until June 2011 the Liberal party held the speakership under a minority Conservative government should be more familiar to us. This kind of posture is, however, propagated largely because it provides an explanation of opposition behaviour that will best resonate with the PPP/C constituency and perhaps even send a message that the PPP/C did not really lose much at the last elections but was robbed of this important position.
The simple fact is, the PPP/C did not have a constitutional, historical or any claim to the speakership. As I said in my previous article, it could have claimed the deputy speakership and although there are Commonwealth precedents where the parliamentary majority has taken both positions, our practice has been different. Despite having a parliamentary majority, the PPP/C and the PNC before it have allowed the opposition to hold the deputy speakership. Indeed, one of the major reasons the PPP/C government was initially reluctant to have the deputy speaker preside when it gained government was the fact that although it had had that position under the PNC, the latter had ensured that its speaker was always present and in the chair.
In my view, it was wrong of the opposition to bypass the tripartite process in the speakership discourse and to take both positions, but the PPP/C contributed to this outcome by making a baseless claim to the speakership, which contributed to its failure to focus on what it was legitimately entitled to and resulted in its losing, as we say “both corn and husk.”
The opposition has made a huge blunder and from the strident position the PPP/C has taken on subsequent opposition requests, they are in pay back mode. In my view, at this early stage we need to put this quarrel down to inexperience and try to move on. Most people want a new collegiate approach to our politics, but as Karl Marx asked in a not unrelated context: “who will educate the educators?”
