APNU’s maneuvering to take over the Speaker’s Chair has nothing to do with making Parliament “more responsive”

For nineteen years, the PPP/C government has been criticised by the Opposition for practicing “winner takes all politics.” This was so even though for the first five years, the major opposition party, the PNC (later the PNC/R) did not indicate any problems with the constitutional allocation of state powers they had incorporated into the 1980 Constitution.

After forcing the PPP/C to modify that constitution in 2000 following their violent street protests in 1998, the PNC were the beneficiary of four parliamentary Sectoral Committees’ that allowed them to scrutinise the entire gamut of governmental operations, in real time. They were allowed a staff and could summon any government official or employee to their hearings. They also became members of the Parliamentary Management Committee. Coupled with their membership and control of Standing Committees such as the Public Accounts Committee and Special Select Committees, our opposition was in a stronger strategic position to influence governmental activities than all of their cohorts in the Commonwealth’s Westminster system of governance.
But the opposition never took full advantage of the new Committees: this, after all, would have necessitated them working more scrupulously to investigate the wild accusations and charges they were prone to making. But these committees were never functioned as they were intended even though members received an extra salary when they became members. The Opposition has rather been clamouring for the recommendations of the Sir Michael Davies Report be implemented.
They have studiously ignored Davies’ warning that the committee system was not functioning as it should on account of the members’ lassitude. He recommended that the Sectoral Committees meet on a much more regular basis and select specific topics that could be completed within a reasonable time frame. If the records are examined, however, it would be seen that the opposition parliamentarians have an atrocious attendance record in these meetings. Additionally, although the Chair rotates with the opposition, the latter have not utilised the opportunity to investigate governmental initiatives that they criticized in public, such as the Amaila Falls Hydro Project.
The sad actuality was that within three years of forcing constitutional change to secure more power in Parliament, the PNC moved on to demand “shared governance’ (2003). Legislative power was not enough: executive power was the goal. And it is against this background that we must evaluate APNU’s maneuvering to take over the Speaker’s Chair. It has nothing to do with making Parliament “more responsive” but everything to do with garnering Executive power.
Before and during the election’s campaign, Mr Granger and APNU swore that the PPP must be included in any future governance of the country if Guyana is to proceed on a sustainable path of development. But in the first order of governmental business, now that the opposition secured a parliamentary majority – the selection of the Speaker of the House of Assembly – APNU did a complete volte face. It insisted that the Opposition not only ignore Westminster conventions and blank the immediate past Speaker Ralph Ramkarran from the position, but for them to select both the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker from the ranks of their ranks.
This move is certainly not a signal that the Opposition is willing to share anything with the PPP under the new dispensation. In fact the candidacy of Moses Nagamootoo from the AFC was torpedoed by Mr Granger of APNU because of the former’s “recent” membership in the PPP Central Committee. Mr Nagamootoo’s association with the PPP was too “recent”: presumably the taint of the PPP did not have enough time to dissipate.
But then, one could argue just as plausibly that Mr Trotman’s longer absence from his conflicts within the PNC’s leadership corps, and the absence of several of his detractors, might have allowed him to rebuild bridges with his old comrades. By whichever measure, APNU has signaled that “winner takes all” might be their standard henceforth.