Dear Editor:
As Guyana continues to avoid solving long-standing and ingrained problems, as the political and business elites of all stripes continue to keep the majority suffering and poor, all this forfeiting much value for future generations, I reflect on the last few years as Guyanese achieved first oil and are approaching elections. Below are some of my notes and recommendations from mid-2017. This one concerns oil, elections and performance of government.
From mid-2017, written long before the no-confidence vote:
Voter sentiment in 2020 with respect to first oil date, election strategies, and other issues.
The margin in the 2015 election was in the range of noise. It is unlikely an incumbent government, somewhat bruised after five years in power, will benefit the same way it did when it was new, untested, and full of promise. A possible approach for the 2020 election for such an incumbent government:
1. Assume the chance of being re-elected is low.
2. Assume the swing voters in 2015 voted for the coalition because of its manifesto, its promise of change, and especially its promise to make government accountable. Hence immediately bring a laser focus to achieving the manifesto goals, and hold Ministers accountable. Set about 3-5 explicit targets for each Minister, with milestones for 3, 6 and 12 months, tied to the 2015 manifesto. Targets should be made public.
3. Assume the swing voters in 2015 did not vote for the coalition because they wanted it to bring oil by 2020, and because they felt the PPP could not bring oil by 2020, since either party could equally bring oil by 2020.
4. Hence assume first oil by 2020 will not be a big factor with the voters in the 2020 election.
5. Assume the voters would like to see the government negotiating a fair deal with Exxon which maximises the benefit to the people of Guyana over the long term.
6. Assume the voters would like to see the government setting up the O&G industry in a way to insulate it from and reduce possible future mismanagement and corruption. And in a way which benefits the people, and not officials and businessmen.
7. Assume the voters would like to see some national development prior to 2020 in the form of infrastructure, education, healthcare, etc, which would require borrowing.
8. Hence consider borrowing now to fund the start of national infrastructure development.
9. But more importantly, assume the voters would like to see robust long term strategic and tactical plans for developing Guyana using O&G revenue. These plans could include: significant pay raises for all public sector employees; extensive infrastructure and agricultural development (continuing on from the pre-2020 projects); making UG the preeminent university in the Caribbean; making Guyana (and Iwokrama) the leading centre for research into rainforest and green issues; making Guyana a test case and leading research centre for dealing with rising sea level; making Guyana a cultural and commercial link between the Anglo Caribbean countries and Latin South American countries, i.e. the Switzerland of region (all Guyanese would become proficient in Spanish and Portuguese); etc; etc.
The above note from mid-2017 is not a criticism of one dinosaur political party over the other, as I previously wrote that the other dinosaur is likely to be worse with respect to oil. Also, I believe the important decision before Guyanese should not be about which dinosaur is worse, but it should be about how to break with the past to create a new and altogether different future. This is especially critical now as we are forfeiting most of our oil wealth.
Jan Mangal via email |
Dear Editor:
I would like to look specifically at the Coalition’s campaign promise of constitutional reform, as it relates to the no-confidence provision in the Constitution of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana.
At the Coalition’s campaign launch, held on the 3rd January 2020, APNU+AFC Coalition Leader, Mr. David Granger, argued that he will amend the Constitution to deal with the No-Confidence Motion provisions. He said, “We are going to reform the constitution so that the nonsense they tried with us over the last 12 months does not happen again.”
This promise was more recently repeated by People’s National Congress Reform Executive, Basil Williams, at a community meeting in South Georgetown. He promised those in attendance that the Coalition plans to amend the Constitution to have a “definite term limit” in Guyana. He went on to say that when you win elections you have five years in Office.
Editor, the main function of the National Assembly is to hold the Government accountable for its action. The Constitution is the supreme law of the country and to amend the Constitution in such a manner, in effect means, removing that accountability and transparency.
G.C. Malhotra, in the book Cabinet Responsibility to Legislature, wrote: “Collective responsibility in a parliamentary system implies that the Council of Ministers is always accountable to the Parliament. For Governance, and also for providing legitimacy to its authority, the Executive must, at all times, enjoy the confidence of the House.”
Further, on the Oxford Constitutional Law website, Anna Dziedzic, in an article titled ‘No Confidence Vote’, stated: “No confidence votes are the procedural expression of the defining feature of parliamentary systems of government, which is that the executive government is accountable to the parliament and holds that office only while it has the confidence of a majority of the elected representatives in the parliament.”
Editor, it is clear that Mr. Williams does not understand the difference between a parliamentary system and a presidential system.
Dziedzic, in her writing, explains that: “No confidence votes in this sense do not feature in presidential systems, in which the head of the executive government is directly elected by the people and does not rely on the support of the parliament to hold office. The impeachment process in presidential systems differs from no confidence votes in parliamentary systems, in that the grounds for impeachment are confined to serious misbehaviour and abuse of office. In contrast, a no confidence vote may be brought because the majority in parliament no longer supports the executive government, and no specific reason is required.”
As such, there is no definite fixed term for any Government, under any of the two systems.
What Mr. Williams failed to mention was the fact that there was a Fixed-Term Parliaments Act of 2011, which denied the prime minister the authority to unilaterally call a new election. However, under the new system, a Parliament would last a full five-year term unless a two-thirds super majority voted for dissolution and early elections.
Editor, it would appear that the APNU+AFC Coalition wants to amend the Constitution of Guyana to allow for an Authoritarian Government in Guyana for five years. I, therefore, urge all right-thinking Guyanese to reject!
Roodi Balgobin via email
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