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Apr 26, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
There was a mutiny inside my psyche when I read Rupert Roopnaraine’s defence of APNU’s choice of its person to be the third GECOM Commissioner from the main opposition party. Roopnaraine told the Stabroek News that the central criterion was not which party the Commissioner came from but “to find someone who is suitable with a grasp of the issues.”
The WPA leader (we will deal in a future column on what or what has been the WPA all these years) went on to explain that the Opposition Leader was looking for someone who would be professional (see SN, April 23, 24)
What Roopnaraine left out or chose to ignore was the essence of the Carter formula that he, Roopnarine was not being honest about. The Carter formula never permitted the Opposition Leader to select all three of the Commissioners. Carter blueprinted a structure where the opposition and ruling party will name three of their own. The emphasis is on “opposition.”
In Guyana, since 1964 there has never been a two-party parliamentary process. Since the birth of the United Force, except for the interregnum of rigged elections), there have been more than one organizations sitting on the other side of the House facing the ruling party’s parliamentarians.
When the Carter framework was adopted, the PNC never shut out the choice of the smaller opposition. With only one seat, the WPA nominated one of its stalwarts, Joycelyn Dow to GECOM. With only one seat, TUF chose Robert Williams. With only one seat Roopnaraine persuaded the PNC to accept Steve Surujballi as GECOM’s Tsar. Back then, Roopnaraine did not enunciate on the criteria to become a GECOM Commissioner. Now with a smaller party (AFC) having seven seats in the House, its nominee was rejected.
This writer has confidential information that APNU’s choice is not that of the AFC’s David Patterson and is not someone from the AFC. Aubrey Norton has done a great service to Guyana by stating that he thinks the nominee should come from the smaller opposition party. I think Norton’s credibility and respect in this country has soared through the skies with this statement.
To ensure that Norton is not exposed and allowed to stand alone in APNU, other APNU personnel should support Norton over his principled position.
I now call on two persons that I have struggled with in the seventies and one of whom campaigned for APNU in the last general election to denounce this monopolization by APNU. First is David Hinds. People change (as I believe I have demonstrated in this article here with Roopnaraine) but I cannot see someone like David accepting this fundamental error in anti-dictatorship politics. The other is Tacuma Ogunseye.
I plan to do a column on the mistakes the AFC has made that have irritated APNU but these are peccadilloes compared to the fundamental breech of a valued tradition in Guyanese politics since Carter negotiated free and fair elections.
Surely, it cannot be acceptable to the people of Guyana that APNU has selected all three of the GECOM Commissioners that are reserved for the opposition parties. As I stated in a column last week, the AFC has 21 percent of the seats that the opposition got in Parliament. APNU’s 79 percent cannot be equal to a hundred percent. I want to make it clear; I am not a member of the AFC.
I have no intention of joining any political party but it is known in Guyana that I have sympathies for the AFC. I have spoken twice on the pulpit of Youth Coalition for Transformation and I would willingly do so again. I would not refuse to speak on an APNU platform. It is my incontrovertible attitude that the PPP is an irredeemable organization that is characterized by deep and dangerous authoritarian instincts punctuated with fascist inclinations.
If we are going to move away from the cocoon of an old political culture that has ravished Guyana since 1953, then APNU is gloriously placed to do so. What is important to note is that some of the top leaders in APNU are getting on in age therefore there must be the pressing desire to see civilized changes in a civilized country before old age steps in. Time waits for no one – the young radical becomes an aged rock star as the years move on.
We are at a historic moment when the AFC and APNU can start the civilizing process. To do so they must be magnanimous with each other. Aubrey Norton has started it, let’s follow him.
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