Having been handed the kind of gift which no one could have imagined a decade ago, the opposition has not been taking best advantage of it. It is not an easy gift, of course; it requires careful handling and considerable adroitness on the part of the handlers to be of true utility. The opposition – or segments of it at least – have been operating as if the gift is theirs to have and to hold indefinitely, but that is not so. While if approached in the right way it can deliver all kinds of benefits to our small political universe, if mismanaged, it has the capacity to shrivel up and leave us all stranded back where we started. If that should happen, there would not be a way forward which would be immediately apparent.
The first – albeit rather obvious – thing which has to be said is that this gift is the product of a democratic election. We reported last week on a statement issued by the PPP about voter loss, among other things, when it was said that the party’s Central Committee had met last Saturday to deliberate on the issue. One presumes that observations other than those which were made public, might have been expressed in private, but whatever the case, the point here is that whatever the conclusions, at least that party seems to have made some effort to come to terms with what has happened.
One doesn’t get the impression that the opposition has been in similarly contemplative mode. Perhaps the AFC which did not do as well as it had hoped held a post mortem, although if so, it has said nothing about it; however, APNU does not appear to have expended any energy reflecting on their position. In terms of percentage of the vote captured, they secured something in the region of the PNC’s traditional figure – almost 41% this time around. The election of 2006 excepted, that is well within the range of 40-42% in elections since 1992. While both Indian and African numbers in the population have declined, proportionately speaking Indians still outnumber Africans, and since ethnic voting is very much alive and well in Guyana the implications are obvious.
In 2006 the PPP won the largest majority it has ever had in Parliament because a significant number of PNC voters either stayed home, or voted for the AFC. In the last election, the reverse happened; a significant number of PPP voters either stayed home or voted for the AFC. The APNU leadership should pay attention; they have their majority because of the AFC, either directly or indirectly, and it comes only in combination with the AFC. In other words, this majority is a very fragile thing, and there can be no assumption about its survival in the longer term. Mr Granger’s cavalier attitude about the opposition’s prospects should the government call a new election, therefore, may possibly not find justification.
Last Wednesday, we reported the Leader of the Opposition as saying that the results of the 2011 elections had come about because of the government’s own incompetence, among other things, and that their attitude had not changed in six weeks. Maybe not, but next time around the PPP’s traditional constituents who broke ranks either actively or passively, would be basing their decision largely on how the opposition performs in Parliament, and whether the new arrangements had brought any benefits to themselves and the nation at large. There can be no guarantee, therefore, that next year, say, they will not change their minds again, just as the PNC constituents changed their minds after 2006, and went back to the fold in the form of APNU in 2011. As it is, there will be no going to the electorate this year, because Gecom simply could not manage it, and even next year a national poll would not be popular with the voters; there is simply too much stress involved. That does not rule out the possibility of one side or the other behaving irresponsibly and triggering another election. One hopes that it will be recognized, however, that what all parties need to work for is local government elections, not national ones, as soon as possible.
Certainly, the shenanigans over the Speakership left a poor impression on the public, and confirmed, if any confirmation were necessary, that no one is anywhere near ready for a national unity government. What needs to happen for the time being is simply a demonstration from the parties that they are capable of working together and making compromises on specific issues in the interest of effective government, and even if the governing party is not ready for this, at least the two opposition parties must come to a modus vivendi and agree on how to proceed in a problematic parliamentary situation. As it was, the decision on the Speaker was not well managed, and as Dr Henry Jeffrey said in his column ‘Future notes’ last week, the opposition should have offered the Deputy Speaker’s post to the PPP/C. While the government’s arguments about the conventions in New Zealand and elsewhere dictating that it should get the Speakership were nonsense, there really is a well-established local tradition that the deputy’s position goes to the other side.
APNU also did not handle the Statements of Poll (SOP) issue with any finesse. While there were no doubt minor difficulties with the tabulation, the overall result was correct and should have been recognized as such by the party not unduly long after the official declaration of results. As it is, they made themselves appear incompetent if not less than transparent, by making the necessary moves towards participating in the work of Parliament, yet at the same time querying the SOPs. Only recently, nearly two months after the election was held, did Mr Granger advise supporters not to expect anything dramatic at the end of the investigation exercise. The young people on the street must at the very least have felt let down by all of this, if not misled, and one can only wonder why at an early stage the leadership had not told them that the result was in all probability in order, and at least disabuse some of them of the notion that Mr Granger had won the presidency. It might be added that the silent audience of those who made a combined majority in the National Assembly possible could not have been too impressed either by all of this.
As things stand, there is no jumping from the present constitution to a national unity government in the immediate future, more especially without the necessary constitutional changes. In any case, that is not what the people voted for, although one can infer that they do want the parties to work together in the current context towards improved governance. And that context is a legislative brake on the executive, with an opposition capacity to impact on and presumably introduce legislative measures. Certainly one would hope for meaningful work being done in the select committees, and one hopes that the opposition would deploy their most qualified and able members in areas where it matters.
Having said that, governments have to govern, and while there were complaints from some in the opposition about the fact that President Ramotar did not negotiate with them about appointing some of their members to the cabinet, he was right not to do so, and in any case, it was not in their interest or the country’s interest for him to do so. Leaving aside the fact that there could not be appointments to office at that level without there first being common policy positions across the board – something which would be very difficult to achieve – an opposition embedded in the government would mean either no legislative brake on the executive, or when the first disagreement arose, stalled government or breakdown and parliamentary disarray. The real problem with Mr Ramotar’s cabinet, as said in an earlier editorial, is not that it does not include members of the opposition, but that it is in general mediocre, with at least one minister who should not be there at all.
The argument in the case of the framing of the Budget is similar: It is the government’s responsibility under the current constitution to draft the Budget. They can do it following consultations with whomsoever they please, and in our current circumstances, that should definitely mean the opposition first and foremost. But the opposition cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds; if it is a true opposition and has the people’s interests at heart, it will sit on the opposition side and carefully scrutinize and criticize the Budget that Dr Ashni Singh presents (following consultations), and work with the government in a parliamentary setting to achieve appropriate amendments. In other words, a tripartite Budget pre-empts the work of the National Assembly, in addition to which, there will be added causes for friction if either side changes their mind about a given provision when the Budget is presented. Then the whole debate will be burdened by vituperative exchanges about what exactly had been agreed and when. In short, it will lead to less co-operation rather than more.
