The Politics of Leadership: Guyana and its Presidency (Part 3)

Sir Ronald Sanders


Guyana's system of government and its electoral system are very different from the systems in place in the other 14 Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom) countries. For a start, it has an Executive President whose powers under the Constitution are considerable. Understanding the system is important to appreciating the politics of winning the Government and the Presidency.

In 11 of the Caricom countries which, like Guyana, are former British colonies and Montserrat, which is a still a British colony, the electoral system divides the country into many constituencies. Each party wishing to contest a constituency puts forward one candidate to stand. Each voter in the constituency then casts one vote for the candidate of their choice. The candidate with the largest number of votes is elected as the Member of Parliament for that constituency, and the party whose elected members represent an overall majority then forms the Government.

The exception is where no party's elected members constitute an overall majority. In such a case, political parties then bargain with each other to form a coalition Government as happened recently in Britain where neither of the two largest political parties -- Labour and Conservative -- secured an overall majority of elected members. The Conservative Party and the smaller Liberal Democratic Party then struck a deal to form a coalition Government.

Among the Caricom countries that have a system similar to Britain's is Trinidad and Tobago where, at recent general elections, a number of political parties agreed to form an alliance to contest constituencies against the incumbent governing party but not against each other. At the end of the elections, having together secured an overall majority, they formed a coalition Government.

Guyana's system is different. Its system of elections is based on proportional representation. Each elector has one vote which is cast for a political party. The elector's vote is applied to the election of 65 members of parliament by proportional representation in two ways. First, the country is divided into 10 administrative regions (geographical constituencies) which elect 25 seats. Some of these regions are allocated more seats than others dependent on the size of their population. Second, the remaining 40 seats, called "top up" seats, are then apportioned to parties based on the proportion they received of the total valid votes cast nationally. A vote for a party in the geographical constituency is simultaneously a vote for that party's national "top up" seats.

Importantly, however, while the same single vote of an elector goes toward electing the President, the Constitution of Guyana states that a Presidential candidate shall be deemed to be elected President "if more votes are cast in favour of the list in which he is designated as Presidential candidate than in favour of any other list". In other words, the successful Presidential candidate requires only a plurality of the votes, not an overall majority.

So, given this electoral system, it is possible for a political party that secures the most votes (a plurality) to gain the Presidency outright.

What is not possible is for a coalition of parties after the election to gain the Presidency. Any coalition that wishes both to form the Government and get the Presidency must contest the election as a single entity with a single Presidential candidate whose name has to appear on its list as the Presidential candidate.

It is an interesting debate for lawyers versed in the intricacies of the Guyana Constitution as to whether a President, elected by a plurality of the vote, is obliged to call on a coalition of parties (that may together outnumber the votes cast for his party) to form a Government or could he simply call on his own minority party to form the Government.

The Guyana Constitution states that it is the President who "shall appoint an elected member of the National Assembly to be Prime Minister of Guyana", and the President who shall appoint "Vice Presidents and other Ministers from among persons who are elected members of the National Assembly". There is no stipulation that such appointments should or must be made from elected members of a party or coalition parties that have an overall majority in Parliament.

Therefore, it appears that a President who is elected by a plurality of votes can choose Vice Presidents, the Prime Minister and Ministers from his own party whether it has an overall majority or not.

While it is possible for the majority of elected members in Parliament to vote against legislation and budgets, creating havoc for a minority Government, it would not necessarily stop the Government from functioning. The classic case in point is Canada where the Conservative Party of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been operating a minority Government since 2008.

This all serves to underscore two things if Guyana is to remain politically stable, build on its recent economic successes and take advantage of the enormous economic possibilities of successful oil exploration and minerals development.

First, it would be best if next year's general election is decisive in terms of a clear winner of both the Presidency and the overall majority in Parliament for one party. To this end, the ruling People's Progressive Party should ensure that both its Presidential candidate and its policies are broad enough to appeal to a wider cross section of the electorate than its core supporters. Similarly, the now disparate opposition parties (disunited internally and fragmented) should try to forge an alliance that also has a Presidential candidate and policies that are attractive across a wide swath of the Guyanese population.

Second, whoever wins the election, the problems of race, equal opportunity, bridging the increasing gap between rich and poor, and crime require tackling in an open, transparent and institutionalised way, or Guyana will always be a divided and weak society failing to be the cohesive and strong nation that it could be in its own interest, and the interest of its Caricom neighbours.

-- Sir Ronald Sanders is a consultant and former Caribbean diplomat
Responses and previous commentaries at: www.sirronaldsanders.com

June 27, 2010

Politics of Leadership - Guyana and its presidency (Part-1)

The Politics of Leadership: Part 2 of Guyana and its Presidency

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International

Politics of Leadership - Guyana and its presidency (Part-1)

By Sir Ronald Sanders:


A number of Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) countries face leadership uncertainties in the coming months. However, in none of them are the uncertainties more pronounced that in Guyana, a sprawling 83,000 sq miles territory on the tip of the South American coast.

The current President, 46-year old Bharat Jagdeo, will finish his two-terms in office next year. Barred by the Constitution from serving for more than two terms, Jagdeo has repeatedly rejected rumours that he intends to change the Constitution to allow for a third term.

Nonetheless the rumours persist. Both well-placed persons and the ordinary man-in-the street claim that Jagdeo has done a deal with the current leader of the opposition in Parliament, Robert Corbin of the Peoples’ National Congress (PNC) to amend the Constitution so as to permit a third term. In return, it is claimed Jagdeo will form a government consisting of his own party, the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) and the PNC in which Corbin would be the Prime Minister.

It is a most unlikely scenario and one which would place both Jagdeo and Corbin at serious odds with their own parties neither of which would tolerate a marriage in which the bride and bridegroom hold shotguns at the heads of the rival families.

Senior officials of the PPP are quick to point out that it was the PPP that amended the Constitution to institute the two-term limit on holders of the Presidency. They argue that the PPP could not credibly initiate or back “amending its own constitutional amendment”.

To be fair to both men, they have both denied any such arrangement and Jagdeo has publicly stated that he is leaving the Presidency at the end of his term.

There is no shortage of aspirants for the job – it is a glittering prize that has been held by five persons since Guyana became independent from Britain 44 years ago. Although Guyana’s politics has been dominated by the PPP and PNC with third parties arising only to be snuffed out after a relatively brief period, next year’s Presidential and general elections should see the Alliance for Change (AFC) still in the race after a showing in the last elections in which they were themselves disappointed.

Historically, since the break-up of the PPP and the creation of the PNC and its rival, Guyana’s electoral politics has been rooted in playing to the country’s racial divisions. The PPP has relied on a significant core support in the community of East Indian descendants, and the PNC has depended on the majority in the community of African descent. For its part, the AFC has been trying to break the mould by appealing to all races and especially to the younger generation who carry much less of the baggage of racial conflicts that has been characteristic of the country’s politics.

But, neither the PPP nor the PNC can now depend on a racial vote to give it an overall majority in a general election.

The size of the East Indian community has been dwindling and now stands at around 35 per cent of the population. The PPP, therefore, needs to maintain its core support while attracting at least 16 per cent of the remaining population to win an outright majority. This task is daunting unless it can field a Presidential candidate and a slate of candidates for Parliament that can reach beyond their core supporters to attract voters from other races.

The same problem besets the PNC. The community of African descendants is now approximately 30 per cent of the population making it necessary for the PNC to gain support from at least 21 per cent of the remaining population to form a government on its own.

The AFC secured just over 8 per cent of the popular vote in the 2006 general elections. It had hoped to win enough support to hold the balance of power and insert itself into a coalition government. That option did not materialise since the PNC won only 34 per cent of the popular vote and the PPP secured a comfortable overall majority of 54 per cent.

Within Jagdeo’s PPP, there is said to be four contenders for the Presidency, two of whom –Donald Ramotar, the Party’s General Secretary, and Ralph Ramkarran a long standing member of the Party’s Executive and current Speaker of the National Assembly - are front runners. It is expected that before the end of this year, the PPP will decide on its candidate for the country’s Presidency.

The situation in the PNC is more complex. Its leader, Robert Corbin, commands the majority the party’s grass roots support, but its traditional middle class supporters are disenchanted with his leadership. There is a growing consensus among the middle-class supporters of the PNC to coalesce behind the Winston Murray, the Party’s former Chairman and an East Indian as the Presidential candidate. Corbin appears to have agreed that the PNC can choose a Presidential candidate other than him, but he has insisted on remaining as Party leader – a situation pregnant with decision-making issues, and one that is unlikely to make the PNC an attractive prospect for the electorate.

At the time of writing the AFC is about to hold a Convention at which its leadership will rotate from its present leader Raphael Trotman to its current Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan. This follows an agreement at the party’s creation that the leadership would rotate. It is not altogether clear, however, that the leader of the AFC will necessarily be its Presidential candidate.

In any event, the AFC would have to perform considerably better at next year’s elections to hold the balance of power to which it aspires in order to force the formation of a coalition government, and it certainly will not get the prized Presidency which, under Guyana’s system, goes to the candidate of the party that secures the largest number of votes.

The fight for the glittering prize is now on in all three parties. The person who inherits it will head a country which has not yet been able to bridge its racial division in political terms, and where economic deprivation and hardship still exists. But, the new President will also inherit from Bharat Jagdeo’s stewardship a country whose economic situation and social services are better than they have been for three decades. Housing, medical facilities and education have all dramatically improved under Jagdeo, as has its infrastructural development particularly water distribution.

An economic basket case for 25 years since 1976, Guyana has moved from being a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HPIC) with little or no economic growth to steady growth today. In 2009, Guyana recorded 3.3 per cent growth while the majority of its CARICOM neighbours showed negative growth; public debt fell from 93.1 percent of GDP as of end-2006 to 56.8 percent of GDP in 2009.

The next President’s task will be build on this legacy and to address with urgency the social and economic inequities that can easily reverse the progress that has been painfully made.

June 11, 2010

The Politics of Leadership: Part 2 of Guyana and its Presidency

The Politics of Leadership: Guyana and its Presidency (Part 3)

caribbeannetnews

Bahamas Blog International

French Caribbean regions reject more autonomy

By Dominique Bareto:


FORT-DE-FRANCE (Reuters) - Voters in the French Caribbean territories of Martinique and Guyana rejected the option of greater autonomy in a referendum at the weekend, authorities said.

A year after protests against high prices in the island of Guadeloupe spread to other French overseas regions, the referendum offered the chance to vote for giving local lawmakers more scope to initiate legislation of their own.

Like other parts of France's overseas territories and regions, Martinique and Guyana depend heavily on support from the mainland, but suffer from higher unemployment than the rest of France and rely on expensive imported food and fuel.

The proposed changes would have given the regions a status similar to that of French Polynesia, which has more responsibility for its own affairs than the so-called overseas "departments" but they would not have led to full independence.

But nearly 70 percent of voters in Guyana, on the South American mainland, and 79.3 percent of voters on the island of Martinique voted to remain overseas "departments" that count as full parts of France and the European Union.

"I was surprised by the size of the result but not by the trend," said Marcellin Nadeau a local mayor who had backed the "yes" vote in the referendum.

President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the vote last year, saying changes were needed to improve governance in the Caribbean regions but his office said in a statement the vote showed how attached they were to the French Republic.

The vote was widely seen as a rebuff to local politicians who had asked Sarkozy to hold the referendum but officials said various factors were at issue.

"There were those who did not answer the question and who saw it as 'Do you want independence?' and who voted No," said Patrick Karam, a government official responsible for overseeing equality issues in the overseas territories.

"Then there were those...who asked 'What will happen to our social benefits in future?'" he told France Info radio.

The vote came as tensions returned to Guadeloupe, the scene of last year's most violent confrontations, where shops were burned and looted and a union leader was killed during a 44-day stand-off between protesters and police.

High prices, combined with what protesters saw as an unfair dominance of key sectors of the economy by the old white elite were the triggers for the protests and the problems have not disappeared despite an accord last year.

Elie Domota, leader of the LKP group which spearheaded the protests, last week called a strike on the island on January 20, saying prices had gone up sharply at the beginning of the year, despite government pledges.

Last year's protests in Guadeloupe ended with a deal to boost the local minimum wage by 200 euros a month and set price pegs on dozens of staple items to reduce the cost of living.

January 12, 2010

caribbeannetnews

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International