Dear Editor,
In December of 2011, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic won the presidency, but lost control of the legislature for the first time in nearly two decades. Unlike most Westminster parliamentary democracies, the head of government in Guyana, courtesy of a highly controversial constitution enacted in 1980, can convene a cabinet without having to rely on the support of the majority of the legislators in the National Assembly. The then freshly elected President Donald Ramotar proceeded to do just that.
Since his election, which heralded the dawn of what is dubbed ‘the new dispensation,’ the citizenry has been treated to a series of parliamentary mêlées, anti- and pro-government protests, and scandals both real and contrived. As the Ramotar administration sparred with the National Assembly and the country lurched from crisis to crisis on such varied issues as the budget estimates, anti-money laundering legislation, procurement, the debt ceiling, and even an obscure environmental tax levy, among others, the chronic lack of statesmanship across the political spectrum was on full display and there was not a legislator on either side of the aisle, that an electorate, markedly frustrated by the gross parliamentary dysfunction, would not have taken a cricket bat to.
But, alas, this is democracy displaying its Greek etymological origin, dēmokratia, meaning ‘rule of the people.’ The no-confidence motion tabled back in August by the Alliance For Change (AFC) and subsequently supported by its colleagues in A Partnership For National Unity (APNU) might have been an ill-timed tactic which, in the absence of any clear strategy to redesign the broken constitutional framework that undergirds the status quo or capture the popular vote, may have, at best, ushered in yet another PPP-led government with a minority status in the National Assembly along with the combat between the legislative and executive branches. At worst, there would be a consolidated and reconstituted traditional support base for the incumbent, thereby leading to a PPP/C government with majority control of the legislature and the carte blanche they usually interpret that result to mean.
How the President expects his proroguing the National Assembly to contribute to an atmosphere conducive to healthy negotiations with the legislators after he has effectively stripped them of their duties, eludes logic. The President seems to have fallen prey to the rationale that clamping down on democratic dissension is an effective means of preserving stability. It is a reasoning eerily similar to that of the Chinese Communist Party rationalizing its one party rule or the Thai and Egyptian armies’ justification for ousting all branches of elected government during the times of unrest which are characteristic of budding democracies.
The year 1992 might have brought free and fair elections, but by replacing an unelected ethnic hegemony with an elected ethnic hegemony and supplanting cheater-takes-all politics with winner-takes all politics, we haven’t done much to build a framework that mandates cooperation, dialogue and consensus. What history will teach the President, however, is that nothing, not even the sense of economic and physical security that he claims only his party can provide, will perennially forestall social discontent if government continues to pursue its policies at the expense of genuine democratic discourse and meaningful input from all stakeholders.
It is a lesson recalcitrant governments, such as in once vaunted bastions of relative prosperity as Turkey and Burkina Faso, have had to learn the hard way.
Yours faithfully,
Saieed I Khalil
