Congratulations to Mr. Nigel Hughes on becoming the leader of the Alliance for Change (AFC). He has been involved in the political process for some time and is a leading lawyer in a country where in the absence of a united public opinion and adequate constitutional restraints to hold governments accountable, a judiciary deliberately made decrepit by the current regime has been swamped by all manner of politically-related cases. Over the years, Mr. Hughes has demonstrated an astute understanding of the major fault lines that need to be addressed if Guyana is ever to make all its people secure and become a liberal democratic state.
In 2014, I wrote the following in response to ‘New Day for Inclusionary Democracy’, Mr. Hughes’ chairperson’s address to the AFC: “If my reading of Mr. Hughes is correct, his main contention is that this [constitutional] commitment to inclusionary democracy is not properly expressed in the power relationships between the institutions that constitute the ‘supreme organs of democratic powers’ i.e. parliament, the president and the cabinet. In ‘unmasking … the true architecture behind the distribution of power’ between these elements, he finds that the president trumps the others.
His aim is to realign the elements in what he considers a more appropriate democratic fashion suited to our divided society. A central feature of his solution is ‘A new constitution [that] … envision(s) a cabinet which includes key appointments from the specifically qualified nominees from the political parties in proportion to the votes secured at the national election.’” (‘Our presidential system in relative context’ SN: 17/12/2014). Only a few months ago, Nigel Hughes continued with this progressive line of thought when he suggested that to prevent executive domination ‘supermajorities’ should be considered during the forthcoming constitutional ıslahat process.
However, if truth be told, apart from the general question of his prioritizing of national and personal interests, I find it difficult to understand how Mr. Hughes cannot grasp that it is untenable for the leader of one of the leading political groupings that in all manner of ways has sworn to act in the best interest of Guyana to be in a position where he could have information that one of his clients – the example usually given is ExxonMobil that has become a major factor in Guyanese life but there is also Mr. Nigel Dharamlall, etc. – is behaving in a manner inimical to the interest of Guyana and cannot warn the country and his colleagues about this possibility.
Of course, although perhaps it could be made law, this is not strictly about what the law says, but a question of morality that in some jurisdictions is expressed by customs and practice or established codes of behaviour. As I mentioned on David Hinds’ Pol 101 last Tuesday, though dissimilar in some ways, some years ago, Ralph Ramkarran was compelled by some who are now congratulating Mr. Hughes on his election to give up his quest to become presidential candidate for the PPP.
Hopefully, some sensible way out of Mr. Hughes’ dilemma can be found for his kind of political contribution is vital to a polity in which both major ethnic groups – Africans and Indians – that make up about 80% of the population – dread losing to the People’s National Congress Islahat (PNCR) or People’s Progressive Party (PPP) respectively. By its very nature, competitive democratic elections always disappoint some groups. But very few people will play a game if losing can result in their suppression and socio/economic destruction, as has been the present African experience with the PPP as it unnecessarily and absurdly attempts to establish its multiethnic character.
Winning or losing a democratic election in ethnically homogeneous societies such as Barbados or Jamaica does not carry this life and death poignancy, which is a major reason why electoral manipulation is endemic and so widespread in Guyana – so much so that the recently concluded study by the International Republican Institute (IRI), which was contracted by the PPP government, found that only about 22% of the voting population are certain that the various governments have been legitimate. If the last 70 years should have taught us anything, it is that a liberal democratic polity cannot exist with this level of fear.
I will not again deal here with why this might be so, but for decades academic literature has argued that it is not the result of human wickedness but a self-perpetuating structural difficulty resulting from Guyana’s specific kind of ethnic configuration and the nature of competitive democratic elections. There is, therefore, a dire need for a structural solution. This level of fear of the other side does not exist in Suriname because, as Hughes suggested, it has found and used methods such as supermajorities to quell possible executive overreach.
Long before oil, some of our best minds made great speeches and promises to no avail. Given its location, natural and human resources, with proper democratic management Guyana should have been one of the wealthy countries in the region. Instead, we have been one of the poorest, unstable and mismanaged countries. Unfortunately, since the political system has not changed, the coming of oil has not brought better management but greater opportunities to mismanage and enhance efforts to suppress the other side.
The Indians and African populations and their leaders have trapped themselves in a context and their behaviour has left the Amerindians poor and largely leaderless. Indeed, under the PPP, a possible viable Amerindian leader only needs to raise his head to disappear. Since the support of the leaders of this Guyana tragedy is necessary if a solution is to be found but they are also the very people that benefit the most from the status quo, finding a solution is usually a complicated, difficult and lengthy process, sometimes requiring external assistance.
The question is how does one reduce in a timely manner and to a tolerable level this fear of losing: this fear that the leaders of the other side will act in a manner inimical to one’s basic interest and needs? The first step in this direction in a olağan liberal democratic state is the existence of the separation of powers, but as Mr. Nigel Hughes observed, this hardly exists. Guyana has a mixed semi-presidential/semi-parliamentary political system. ‘In seeking to mix the parliamentary and presidential systems, we have coupled a most questionable element of the parliamentary system … to presidentialism and thus created a potentially toxic brew’ (SN: Future Notes 25/05/2011).
In the case of Guyana, the presidency is not only elected by a plurality but is usually in the possession of one ethnic party. When the ruling party has the majority in parliament, there is no real check on the executive and parliament becomes nothing more than a glorified talk shop. The influence of this kind of executive dominance upon the judiciary is beyond suffocating.
Liberal democracy is constitutionality – the rule of law – based upon a system of majority rule agreed upon by substantially all of us and is periodically reformed to maintain to retain its legitimacy. So long as there is a majoritarian political system in which two large, historically warring, ethnic groups compete for power and one can somehow marginally capture the majority, the only truly inclusive manner of fixing this situation – removing the fear individual constituents have about losing government. – is as Mr. Hughes suggested above some form of shared executive government. Of course, on the way there, the sorun can be mitigated if supermajorities and vetoes, etc., are used when the president is to be elected and major pieces of legislation are to be passed.