MODERATION AND COALITION

Jan 13, 2013 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

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David Hinds recently awarded APNU an “F” grade for its evident abandonment of its pre-election commitment to a ‘national government’ platform. While the grade might be deserved for other reasons, we thought it was a tad harsh in light of the fact that politics is not noted for altruism as its driving force. APNU senses, with good reason, that it can have the whole enchilada on its own.  Our position is that the ‘grand coalition’, such as APNU had advocated, will not become reality in the absence of some constitutional stipulation that compels it.
In our 1990 call for ‘a new political culture’ we’d suggested: “that future governments of Guyana be comprised of a party or a coalition representing a minimum of two thirds of the electorate of Guyana.”  If the constitution can permit (as it does now’) a government formed by the party able to squeeze out just a ‘plurality’ (receiving the largest bloc of votes) we don’t see why it can’t demand a ‘super majority’ one in the future. With no one ethnic group commanding an ‘inbuilt majority’ any longer, this is the only device to possibly offer us stable governments in the present and foreseeable future.
The two-thirds representational requirement, in Guyana, would guarantee accommodative behaviour; compel coalitions and remove the drive for consolidation of the ethnic bases so that no one ethnic group would dominate any government.Since neither of the two major ethnic blocs approach this percentage, in mobilisation drives, their political representatives would be forced to appeal to all ethnic groups so as to be acceptable “partners”.  They would have to seriously tailor their programs and appeal to transcend their particular ethnic base. Some may point out that this is precisely what the “multiethnic” parties have attempted to do.  However, experience has shown that while true multiethnic parties are almost impossible to sustain, multiethnic coalitions, such as the Alliance in Malaysia, are possible. People want to pick their own representatives to “bat” for them.
We suspect that now it has been tested, most Guyanese are dissatisfied with the ‘plurality’ rule, introduced in 1980, for securing the executive. Well, if we’re going to change that rule, why not make it best suited to our demographic imperatives? In several instances, the Constitution already demands a “super majority” – to approve decisions deemed to be of significance to the integrity of the system itself. For example, to change certain Articles of the Constitution requires 66.33% (2/3) of the National Assembly’s approval for passage.
How did the fifty per-cent “majority” rule come to be associated with “democracy”? There is nothing mystical about the number fifty.  The essential point is that those dissenting from the decision must believe that they have an equal opportunity of being in the “majority” at some later date on some other or the same issue.  In Guyana the “fifty percent majority” might not accomplish this result; the sixty-five per cent stipulation certainly would.  The major obstacles to the grand coalition in Guyana are that both major parties want to have their cake and eat it too.  They would like to retain their ethnic bases while trumpeting to the world that they have multiethnic support.  They both purport to find ethnic bargaining distasteful while they yet engage in ethnic mobilization.
For the Grand Coalition proposal to be successful there would have to be a commitment from the leaders to form a coalition after each election, with bargaining and public agreement necessary on all issues affecting ethnic group members. Both of these conditions are addressed by the two-thirds “majority” rule. As with other proposals in constitutional engineering, there are no guarantees in electoral innovations “solving” ethnic hostility.   In tandem with other techniques, such as Federalism, however, there is no doubt that we may begin to climb out of the morass in which we have been struck since 1957.
The goals of the coalition would be to: reduce tensions between the supporters of each party and form a Government representative of the widest possible cross section of the population.  For the proposal to work, the parties would have to support a common presidential candidate and agree on a common program.  In context of Guyanese politics this would be problematic since most parties claim to be multiethnic, leaders have presidential ambitions, and there is wide ideological divergence between parties.
The benefits of this arrangement are that: relationships of intimacy develop between leaders as they work together; if flank parties develop, as they inevitably will, the ethnic components of the coalition can address their concerns or alternately the flank parties can be brought into the coalition and the chosen representatives of each group explicitly represent their interests.

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