Dear Editor,
The Guyana Chronicle headline of Tuesday, first day of January, 2019 was astonishing, proclaiming that the passage of the No-Confidence Motion was nothing. Surely that was great additional confirmation that the group in the Offices of our Government had lost their way. Perhaps their difficulty is that they have attributed not nothing, but too much to the passage of that motion: it is not their end, it is no end but another step in our evolving journey to greater political maturity. Yes, an early, immediate premature end only to our Parliament eleven: a fifteen-month early return to our electorate for a renewed mandate, no more. Let us all entreat Our President, our Prime Minister and our Speaker not to retreat from their first acceptance of a prompt return to the polls, and shun the seductive songs of those who claim to show that thirty-four (34) is the required majority, not thirty-three (33) in an Assembly of 65; the same arguments which they took unsuccessfully some years before to the Minority Government of the PPP/C. To those who ascribe to regular elections fair and free, no more than five years between, one shortened mandate should not portend an end.
We PPP/C speak in earnest for we have only recently endured shortened terms, not one but two.
Our first early election was an imposition, borne for the integrity of our nation. The results of Elections 1997, declared free and fair by observers local and foreign, that second successive PPP/C win was not accepted by the other side, the marches of “slow fyah – mo fyah”, the real fires across Georgetown seemed determined to consume our nation. Seeking to find a way out, Caricom brought the Herdmanston Accord pleading that many who were not supportive of the PPP/C were fearful, the PPP/C would always be winning, even without rigging (the premise of forever winning, just so, we PPP and PPP/C have never accepted: always seeing it as our challenge to win acceptance of all our people). Mistaken they have been, lacking patience and persevering, in earnest, honest work avoiding, who see election results in Guyana as just dismaying racial censuses, which would forever be so. Constitutional Amendments were proffered as the way out – strengthening and enshrining minority rights: the innovative precedent in 1992 of our Leader of the Opposition submitting a list of six names from which our President would choose the Chairman of GECOM, enshrined; veto rights to the Leader of the Opposition in the appointments of our Chancellor and Chief Justice: many new Rights Commissions and new procedures in the appointment of various State officials.
Such proposals in themselves were worthy of consideration but it was hard to swallow the call for us, PPP/C, to commit to rapidly proceeding with them, having them completed within three years, and to hold new elections immediately thereafter under that newly amended Constitution. The prospect was that two years would be cut from our 1997 mandate, through no fault of our own.
To many of us supporting the PPP/C, it seemed to be blackmail rewarded. It was for President Janet Jagan sitting almost alone, to make that lonely ruling: let us accept and remove that millstone which many of our brothers and sisters perceive to be in their way: let us get back to growth and development of our people and country; let Guyana win. Many if not all of us went along but with much biting of our tongues and much swallowing.
Our second shortened term and early elections was our forced choice of May 2015, having won a plurality but not a majority in November, 2011. To the group in Government now, in opposition then, there was never any question throughout our Parliament ten, that their thirty three (33) votes were a majority that would carry any motion against our thirty two (32). As our then AG has written recently, some persons did come to us singing their song that a minimum of thirty four (34) was required for a majority in our Parliament of sixty five (65): he rejected those arguments then and rejects them now. It was with that certainty on the part of the then Opposition that they put the No-Confidence Motion which President Ramotar judged that we should first seek to delay, some time for reconciliation providing; none forthcoming, he called an early election. Imagine what a tragedy there would have been in our Guyana if we PPP/C had hearkened to those siren songs of thirty four (34) being required to carry that 2014 N-C-M.
An earlier than expected election is not an end to, but a step in our evolving journey to political maturity. Let the campaigns for our March 2019 Elections begin: All Campaigning for a Guyana Win.
Yours faithfully,
Samuel A.A. Hinds
Former President and former Prime Minister
