Shared governance

Jan 05, 2009 Editorial

The New Year began with another fervent call from the Leader of the Opposition for “shared governance” in Guyana. The PNC’s understanding of the concept was unveiled in 2002, shortly before then leader of the PNC Mr Hugh Desmond Hoyte passed away.

Most germanely, at the core of its proposal was a structure of Executive Power Sharing, in which all parties represented in Parliament beyond a specified percentage would be represented in the Cabinet. The Presidency would be non-Executive and its incumbent would be selected by the largest party.

Even before the PNC made its suggestions public, there had been a sustained debate and discussion of the concept in the media, in which several models were unveiled that had been put into practice in several countries.

However, in each of the countries mentioned, the populations were divided vertically along some identified marker of race, religion or ethnicity, and the “shared governance” structure was intended to bring one or more excluded ascriptive group into the governmental apparatus.

The operation of the normal majoritarian rule of democracy had, in the absence of the innovation, worked to ensure that the group that fortuitously was able to muster the requisite number, capture and hold power in perpetuity.

The fly in the ointment with applying the model to Guyana was that the party that was proffering it, not in an academic discourse, but in the hurly-burly of real politics, was not willing to clearly state which of the divisions of Guyana it was going to represent in the “shared governance” structure.

The PNC, while conceding that voting in Guyana invariably was split along ethnic lines, insisted that it was a “multi-ethnic” party as did the PPP. If this were so, then in which way would its shared governance structure ensure better “democracy”? Is “democracy” now to be defined as “government by one hundred percent of the populace”?

Not surprisingly, the PPP seized upon the fatal flaw of the PNC’s proposal and rejected the proposal as an artifice intended to assist the opposition to gain power through the “back door”. It insisted that with it as a party that included “all racial and class” strata, inclusion of the other parties in opposition added nothing fundamental to its representativeness.

After all, when it had been proposed that women, as a group with particular interests and views, did not have enough representation in Parliament, it very quickly acquiesced and enacted the necessary legislation to ensure that the lacuna was filled.

The PPP responded to the essentially different question posed by the PNC’s refusal to address the ethnic conundrum – the question of enlarging democratic participation of the entire population tout court, rather than of constituent groups – by proposing what it labelled “inclusive governance”.

The locus of broadening the inclusion of the populace in governance would be Parliament and not the Cabinet. Four Sectoral Committees, with members drawn from the government and opposition benches, were established with the mandate to “scrutinise” the entire operations of Government. Most pertinently, the rotating Chairmanship of these committees were to be evenly shared with the Opposition.

When this widening is added to the already existent Standing Committees of Parliament, including the ever important Public Accounts Committee always chaired by an Opposition member and the acceptance of the Government to send contentious legislation to Select Committees, it would appear that the Opposition’s putative concern has been addressed.

For Shared Governance of the Executive Power Sharing variant to be possibly considered by a party that can secure office under the existing rules, there are two options. One would be for the Opposition to demonstrate to the international community that it has been robbed under fraudulent elections as has occurred in Kenya and (more dubiously) Zimbabwe. The Opposition tried this option after the 2001 elections – including violent and deadly protests – and failed. It cannot cash the same cheque twice: the international community has been forewarned.

The other would be for the Opposition to make the argument that to exclude Guyanese from lending their talents to their country in a time of impending, catastrophic crisis, both domestic and international, is immoral. Mr Corbin’s most recent call appears to be couched in the appropriate language but he would know that in matters of morality, actions speak louder than words. Morality, as charity, begins at home.

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Shared governance

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