The rising flames of chutzpah

Mar 15, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Is it possible that if the PPP had lost the plurality vote, it would have accepted the electoral result? Given its present rejection of the parliamentary configuration, it is plausible to say it would not have done so. There is noting complex about the 2011 election results. Under the Constitution, a party can win the presidency but not the Parliament.
The arithmetic in that is too simple not to understand. One party gets 41 percent, another 30 and the third 29. It means who got 40 would win the presidency but not the Parliament. The PPP either psychologically or through mischief does not understand this pronouncement of the Constitution under which it has been protected to govern since 1992.
In what must be pomposity unprecedented in world politics since the Second World War, the PPP refuses to accept the opposition control of National Assembly thereby rejecting the separation of power, a priceless fixture in modern politics. It has embarked on another unprecedented act – the use of the judiciary to remove a majority decision of the National Assembly.
This arrogance or downright insult first showed its ugly imprint with the controversy over the Speaker of the National Assembly. It had to be an act of suicide if the combined opposition in the House had voted for the Speaker to come from the PPP. There was no way it could have appeased its supporters. But it had to be an act of impudent chauvinism for the PPP to have demanded the Speaker because in securing that position, the PPP would have virtually erased the numerical difference in votes between itself and the combined opposition.
The Speaker of the National Assembly is an extremely authoritative figure in the separation of power. He/she in fact maintains the separation of power (as I showed in a previous KN column, “Raphael Trotman, the Westminster system and post-colonial stupidities,” March 1, 2012). The Speaker has enormous influence in shaping the function of Parliament. We have seen that already when Mr. Trotman granted a long adjournment at the PPP’s request to reconsider its refusal to nominate persons to the parliamentary committees).
From the hubris and hauteur of the Speaker controversy comes a reenactment of the same overbearing attitude with the parliamentary committees. These compartments of the House are, in effect, the actual functioning of the National Assembly. These organs of Parliament are the veins and arteries of the House.
If the opposition should reduce itself to a minority in these committees or have a fifty/fifty composition then it has effectively reduced its majority in Parliament. The power of Parliament is not only in the laws the members pass but in what those committees do.
If the PPP does not recognize the right of APNU and the AFC to combine their strength in the National Assembly then it is literally derecognizing the effect of the votes cast in the last election. In the result, the PPP got fewer ballots than the combined AFC and APNU.
It is of no concern to the PPP if the two opposition parties combine their voting power in the Assembly. What it means then is that the Executive has to live with a Legislative it does not control.
To repudiate this reality is an act of incredible chutzpah. This is what the PPP is doing. By the same token, the combined opposition can disown the voting reality of 2011 and refuse to acknowledge the right of the Executive to make policies because the ruling party got fewer votes than the combined opposition.
A new dimension in the rejection of the separation of power has entered the equation -.the court case in which the Chief Justice is being asked to strike out a vote in the National Assembly whereby the majority of parliamentarians agreed to a particular shape of the parliamentary committee.
The nightmare that will come alive is if the ruling party gets a ruling in its favour. This is where the PPP’s flames of chutzpah may destroy Guyana. There is only one of two directions opened to APNU and the AFC. They can appeal the decision and maybe take it to the Caribbean Court of Justice if they lose in the Guyanese appellate court.
Until then, the opposition will not be in control of Parliament because the committees will not have an opposition majority. Alternatively, the majority in the House can ignore the court’s ruling and carry on. There can be further confusion if the Speaker and the Leader of the Opposition (both named in the writ) are in disagreement on the rejection of the court’s ruling. Can the flames of the PPP’s chutzpah destroy Guyana?

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The rising flames of chutzpah

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