Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 13, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
In 2006, I voted for the Alliance for Change (AFC). I do not know to whom I will be giving my preference in 2011. Notwithstanding the personal friendship between myself and Khemraj Ramjattan, I am still far from satisfied with the praxis of the AFC.
One thing for sure – the PNC and PPP are out of my personal equation. Paul Hardy threw away a priceless opportunity for defeating the PPP when he failed to maintain his standing among the Amerindians.
From 2006 onwards, an interesting phenomenon has developed in Guyana. We have to thank President Jagdeo for bringing it into focus, though it was the presidency of Desmond Hoyte that brought it into being. This curiosity centres on the relationship between the person that becomes the president and the party that wins the election. Stabroek News, in an editorial, reflected on this new dilemma and, like all of us since 2006, there is no answer.
The peculiar case of Desmond Hoyte rendered the analysis useless because Hoyte was democratising without the input and consent of the ruling party, and the PNC was too unpopular to challenge him.
But they couldn’t stop him even if they wanted to because the ruling party in Guyana has no legal powers to prevent a sitting president from going in the direction he wants to.
The only recourse is Parliament, and even in that forum the Constitution protects the President (see the superb work, “Law and the Political Environment” by Rudy James and Harold Lutchman for the labyrinthine network in the Guyana Constitution that confuses the analyst in determining who has final power; the Parliament or the Constitution)
One can say that in Guyana we have Part Two of the story of a president and his party. I have heard sufficient from the key players inside the nerve centre of the PPP to convince me that there is a huge schism between the ruling party and the presidency.
From all that I have seen and heard, there is no legal way the ruling party can get their President (it is their president because in Guyana parties contest elections, not individuals) to do what they would like him to do if he has made up his mind. It brings into sharp focus the role in government of the party that won the election.
Judging from what went on with Mr. Hoyte, and now with President Jagdeo, this theoretical lacuna needs intellectual treatment. There could be a repeat of Hoyte and Jagdeo in 2011. We can start with the PNC.
It seems that this year the PNC will have a new leader, but he will defer to a consensus candidate in the national elections in 2011. If the unity leader wins, what can the PNC do to ensure that he remains a transmission belt between Congress Place and New Garden Street?
Then there is the PPP. By now, those who follow Guyanese politics will know how Mr. Jagdeo became President. The drama went like this; Mrs. Jagan was identified as the presidential candidate but chose to decline. The likely successors to Cheddi Jagan couldn’t agree among themselves as to who should get the slot in the 1997 poll. A dispute arose between Mr. Ralph Ramkarran and Moses Nagamootoo. Mrs. Jagan agreed to serve and Bharrat Jagdeo was selected as the choice in the event of Mrs. Jagan’s incapacity to govern. The rest is now history.
What happens if there is a reenactment of that scenario and a figure of unknown quantity emerges? What happens if he/she wins in 2011 and the Jagdeo disjuncture reappears?
What constitutional or legal requirement could be composed to empower the ruling party? After Desmond Hoyte and Bharrat Jagdeo, it would be foolish for voters not to press their parties on this quagmire?
There is at least one way of doing it – write a clause in the Constitution that compels a president to resign if a proper vote is taken in the highest organ of the ruling party that orders him to vacate. To prevent him from buying over the members of his party’s leadership, there should be a law that stipulates that Cabinet posts and high offices in the public sector must only be done by majority rule in the party that governs.
This theoretical lacuna that I referred to above is a pathway that leads to dictatorship. From 1985 onwards, Mr. Hoyte ran the country, not the PNC. From 2001 onwards, Mr. Jagdeo has been governing, not the PPP. Political parties need to address this dilemma – how to prevent one-person dictatorship after the national elections.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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