There is no question that all is not right in the State of Guyana, and Guyanese are rightfully concerned that something be done about it. One justification bandied around on that concern is attributed to Albert Einstein, the world-renowned scientist: “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. But this raises the question of what “thing” to change.
The most recent manifestation of what is “wrong” in Guyana goes back to the No Confidence Motion (NCM) that was passed on December 21, 2018. The background was that in 2011, the PNC-as-APNU garnered 26 seats, the AFC 7 and the PPP 32. Because constitutionally, parties cannot coalesce their seats after the elections to form the Government, the party with the plurality of the seats can do so. As such, the PPP won the Presidency and the Executive. However, with their combined majority in the National Assembly, the coordinated Opposition parties forced the PPP into becoming a lame-duck administration. They were manoeuvred into calling an early election in 2015 after the AFC threatened to move an NCM against them. This was all within the tradition and conventions, which the PPP accepted.
Before the 2015 elections, the APNU formally coalesced with the AFC and they repeated their 2011 feat to gain 33 seats to the PPP’s 32. And since they were in a formal coalition, they were allowed to form the Presidency and Executive and also have control of the Legislature. Even though the PPP fielded an election petition, this was never heard by the Courts and they went along with the new dispensation. Finally, they were successful with their 2018 NCM after one AFC MP from the coalition voted against his party in a conscience vote, occasioned by the coalition’s callous treatment of his sugar-workers constituency.
And we arrive at the fly in our political ointment. The PNC-dominated coalition did not only refuse to obey the clear dictates of the Constitution to resign the Presidency and Cabinet, but proceeded to repeatedly make a mockery of mathematics and the electoral laws – to the extent of flagrantly attempting to rig the 2020 elections until they were brought to heel by the international community and our apex Appellate Court – the CCJ. They have filed election petitions against the election verdict that were promptly thrown out by the High Court and have now appealed. But through PNC Leader David Granger, the PNC have again shown that they are adamantly opposed to the rule of law unless it favours them: he asserted that the CCJ should not be our final Appellate Court on electoral matters.
The “thing” that ails Guyana is, therefore, not necessarily the system, but the refusal of the PNC to follow the laws of the land. What their behaviour demonstrates from their first long durée of 1964 to 1992 and then from 2015 to 2020, is that if we expect to get different results in our politics, then we have to quit trying to change our institutions and begin to insist that the PNC change their behaviour and practise democratic norms. Albert Einstein also had something to say about this perspectival shift: “We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
Our political problems originated from us assuming that the parties competing for political power will act rationally within the rules of the political game to achieve power.
Why did the PNC/APNU alienate crossover votes in a nation of minorities? The PNC’s present insistence that the PPP rigged their way into office at the 2020 elections is absurd even without the evidence accepted by every observer group that vetted the elections. Since 2011, the PPP knew the combined PNC/AFC could defeat them. Why did they not rig the 2015 elections? Why wait until they were out of office?
The Guyanese people must not turn cartwheels just because the PNC refuse to follow democratic rules.
