After the five-month delay in APNU+AFC recognising the legitimate results of the 2020 election, no one could have anticipated yet another time-lag in the appointment of a leader of the opposition. That is a post which under normal circumstances goes automatically to the leader of the major opposition party after the formality of an election held by the Speaker. But these are not normal circumstances, not least because the obvious candidate does not sit in Parliament and according to the Constitution cannot therefore accede to the post.
Initially there was no problem, because after the change of government Mr Joseph Harmon was elected to the position by coalition members together with Mr Lenox Shuman without any complications coming to the fore, but that was before the upheaval in PNCR politics.
Mr Aubrey Norton was elected by PNCR members to succeed Mr David Granger as leader of the party, handily defeating Mr Granger’s candidate, Mr Harmon. Normally the leader of the PNCR would be expected to become the leader of the opposition, although it is true that when Mr Harmon was elected to the post he did not head the PNCR, Mr Granger did. That, however, was a very special arrangement, since Mr Harmon followed his leader’s instructions and guidance, just as he had done when they were in the army together. The potential combination of Mr Granger and Mr Norton, however, is an altogether different kind of chemistry.
While the electorate looked on with bemusement, a drama involving internal party politics played out in public, something which is not common in our little universe. The problem for the PNCR is that for the first time since the 1960s it does not sit alone on the opposition benches; it is part of a coalition. (There have been other parties such as the TUF and WPA in Parliament from time to time, but they were never in a position to affect the PNCR’s choice of Minority or Opposition Leader.) In the first place it is part of an alliance called APNU, which includes a few other very small parties, and in the second, it sits as a coalition with the much more substantial entity of the AFC with which it has an agreement known as the Cummingsburg Accord.
Mr Granger was not just Leader of the PNCR, but also Chairman of APNU, although the minuscule associated parties would have been in no position numerically speaking to overturn anything the major party wanted. Even if Mr Granger had retained the chairmanship, therefore, he could not have overriden Mr Norton’s wishes in the context of APNU. It is probably for this reason that last week the former announced he was relinquishing the Chairman’s post, following which Mr Norton was elected to succeed him.
That did not make much difference to the PNCR Leader’s position in respect of the opposition leadership. That matter is altogether more complicated. It presented an especial challenge before last week because Mr Harmon made it clear he was not of a mind to step down from this post. While it would only have required a third of the members under Article 184 to mount a vote of no confidence against him, a majority would be required to remove him. Of the 32 opposition seats in Parliament, 22 pertain to APNU, nine to the AFC and one to Mr Shuman. To secure a majority in an election for the Opposition Leader 17 votes would be required.
As it is Mr Harmon announced last Wednesday that he will step down as Leader of the Opposition. But various impediments still stand in the way of Mr Norton succeeding him. Far and away the most important of these is the fact that the Representative of the List is Mr Granger. In this post, he appoints the Members of Parliament to represent the party, and can also recall members at any time after they have taken up their seats. At the beginning of the present parliamentary session he did not select Mr Norton as an MP, and as mentioned above he cannot as a consequence become Leader of the Opposition. Before that would become possible Mr Granger would have to recall a sitting member and then appoint Mr Norton in their place. The former has so far indicated his intention to hang on to his brief, and at the same time he has not said he would arrange to have Mr Norton sit in the National Assembly.
The question has to be asked, therefore, whether Messrs Granger and Harmon have it in mind to nominate someone who already sits in Parliament as Leader of the Opposition and to deny Mr Norton a seat, or if they give it to him, to do so only after that Opposition Leader has been elected. They may regard this as a viable way to proceed now that the AFC has said that it would only vote in favour of Mr Norton for the opposition post, and that if anyone else were nominated its members would abstain. Mr Shuman has told this newspaper that he would be abstaining no matter who APNU puts up as a candidate.
Messrs Granger and Harmon would have to be able to command 17 votes among their own members if they want to go this route, although whether they can do this or not no one knows. What can be said is that Mr Norton would only require a handful of votes to defeat such a stratagem, and as the new PNCR Leader, one might have thought this would hardly be an impossible task for him. If Mr Granger is not prepared to ensure Mr Norton gets a seat in the House, and/or his preferred candidate cannot secure a majority for the opposition leadership, that would be bad news for our democracy.
It is a point the AFC and the PNCR understand very well. This newspaper was told last week that both were concerned that with the Budget debates beginning this week, “the optics look bad that there isn’t an Opposition Leader.” During those debates one hour is allotted to the Leader of the Opposition for a rebuttal and if such a person has not yet been appointed, then we were told that the Chief Whip would have to nominate somebody to do that. The source said that both sides were “hoping that it doesn’t have to come to that.” For its part the AFC indicated through a source that it did not want the coalition to be in the House without a Leader of the Opposition for a lengthy period. “We do not subscribe to anyone acting in the capacity … for too long because that is not what we have agreed when we went into this coalition.”
We reported last week that Mr Granger met AFC Leader Mr Khemraj Ramjattan on Monday, and made out a case for retaining the position of Representative of the List. This newspaper was told by sources that the former PNCR Leader had said he believed in holding true to agreements and that the coalition’s supporters would not wish him to diverge from that. The absurdity of that particular argument seemingly did not strike him.
Sources close to Mr Granger indicated to Stabroek News their concern about the criticism directed at him and the calls for him to relinquish his role as the Representative of the List. One of them said that the former Leader’s argument was based on the fact that the law was not clear-cut about a Representative of the List giving up the post during the tenureship. It is true that the law is not clear; in fact the Representation of the People Act has nothing to say about the matter at all, but that does not mean that relinquishing the post is not the right thing to do.
We were also told that “having a custodian Representative of List is nothing new because it was there in 2015 when [Professor Harold Lutchman] held the post.” The source went on to add, “He can be custodian until there is another election and there is nothing wrong with that. It has happened before and the former President has a valid point.” However, Professor Lutchman told this newspaper that his post was a merely ceremonial one, as he was not involved in any decision-making process. After the decisions had been made the documents were simply taken to him for signature.
If it were that Mr Granger were prepared to operate in the same way and just give his imprimatur to decisions that had already been taken by the PNCR at whatever level, one supposes that there would be little problem with that. But everyone, not least the PNCR, has the experience to know that Mr Granger does not go in for appearances; what he wants to retain is the real authority which he has been exercising up to this point. While we reported political observers yesterday as saying that the role is mainly a formal one and that it is the leadership of APNU+AFC which should make the decision, it is unlikely that Mr Granger will willingly concede that.
The AFC has not yet held discussions with the current Representative of the List on his role, and it has to be wondered whether in the absence of any specific provisions in the law for this situation, the coalition partners could not agree that he should step down and someone else be appointed. The political instincts of Messrs Granger and Harmon were never impressive, and one can only ask whether they have grasped the full implications of the line they are pursuing. Whatever they may think of Mr Norton, a PNCR wracked by dissension will not be able to perform the functions its constituents and the electorate at large expect: i.e. holding the government accountable. They are also in danger of crippling the party they are so anxious to preserve.
