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Sep 05, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Minority government is not as normal as a majority administration, because the latter has more room to pursue its policies unhindered. But at the essential level, minority government is workable.
Driving the success of the minority regime is the partnership it seeks or the accommodation it pursues with other parliamentary entities. The greatest example of an efficacious minority existence is the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). It won a plurality in the German elections, just like the PPP here, but not a majority.
Its minority status was in trouble because two smaller parties rejected an accommodation. The Greens and Communists ideologically have little in common with the CDU. In the end, the CDU sought an alliance with the Social Democrats. What you have in Germany is a coalition between the two major parties, equivalent to the PPP and PNC in Guyana.
Journalists, commentators and analysts do not refer to the British and German Governments as minority formations, but they are. What they have done is that they have a parliamentary alliance. There is a minority administration in the UK. But the Conservative Party governs the UK, because the Lib-Dems offer it parliamentary support. In turn, the Lib-Dems get many of their demands. Minority regimes, then, are inherently trade-off affairs.
If a political party does not win control of the legislature, it knows that like the passenger, it will be rejected if it does not have the fare. It can either promise the driver to pay very soon after.
Beg the driver and that cannot be done often. Or expect the driver’s generosity in exchange for some demand.
But the leaders of a political party not in control of the legislature know that without an alliance, they cannot govern.
The most abominable departure from this tradition is Guyana after 2011. However, apathetic the population of Guyana is, the combined opposition put up with unbearable excess of the minority government, and it should have put a stop to it as 2012 progressed. The arrogance of the PPP’s minority existence to date demonstrates the indecency and moral depravity of many sections of this society that the young must be told about and urged to speak out against.
The business community showed what a morbid, irredeemable mafia-styled organization it is. From the beginning of 2012, the PPP showed none of the signs, not one, typical of minority government – the pursuit of accommodation. The churches did nothing to get the PPP to compromise, no matter how fundamentally crucial the issues were.
And the PPP has stuck with this attitude since then. All indications were graphically emblazoned on the social landscape that the PPP will not seek alliances for its parliamentary agenda. One of the early warnings was UG. Just weeks after President Ramotar was sworn in, industrial action gripped UG.
The major demand was a depoliticized Council of the University. This was in February. In May, the Government announced a new Council and increased PPP membership, adding Odinga Lumumba.
He is now the PPP point man on finance at UG; nothing can be more vulgar.
From 2012 onwards, Guyana saw a departure from traditional politics that few opposition parties around the world would have tolerated. A minority government took latitudes and scope as if it had a landslide number in the National Assembly. Even the Constitution was ignored, as pointed out by analysts who proved that the Procurement Commission is a constitutional stipulation.
Whatever criticism one can make about the nature of the PPP, it cannot be denied that the PPP is not a timid organization and will pursue its desires and goals no matter how obnoxious they are, without fear.
What this country has seen is a minority franchise that has operated as if it owns Wall Street. The frightening dimension of the PPP that makes it significantly lower in quality than the Burnham administration, is that the PNC under Burnham was extremely hesitant to go in many directions it wanted because of fear opposition anger.
Since 2012, the PPP has operated with total disregard, extensive contempt and flippant dismissal of the Parliament.
The politics of the PPP since President Ramotar was sworn in, is that the PPP is the majority party and will rule as such. And it has ruled as such, giving not one ounce, not one inch of concession. The nice thing (ironically) about this minority inflexibility is that the absence of the amendments to the money laundering legislation is going to hurt certain prostituting sections of the society from which the working people and poorer classes should derive some glee. Sometimes a prostitute can be a silly person not worth caring about.
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