THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE IS NOT EXERCISED BY PROXIES

Feb 27, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The one-seat majority that the opposition parties gained at the last general elections seems to have triggered a great many political delusions. One of the most pronounced of which is that when the majority in parliament decide on an issue, it represents the will of the people.
This idea that a vote in parliament represents the will of the people needs to be put to rest, because it is misguided and premised on a gross misunderstanding of the concept of “the will of the people”.
Today, in fact, it is common to even question whether the will of the majority can be said to be the will of the people. When the PNC lost the 1992 elections, they took the position that their minority 43% did not amount to zero. Now that the tables have turned, they are singing a different tune.
When we speak about the “will of the people“, we refer to the direct exercise of power by the people. The will of the people is not exercised indirectly.
The people exercise this power at elections. When the people vote in elections, the outcome of those elections is deemed to reflect the will of the people, only if the elections are fair.
However, when the persons who are elected to the National Assembly decide on an issue, they may act in the name of the people, but not necessarily in accordance with the will of the people, because that exercise of power may conflict with what the people want.
As such, the indirect exercise of power by those elected by the people cannot be seen as an expression of the will of the people. The parliamentarians may act in the name of the people, but this is not the same as acting in the interest of the people or exercising the will of the people.
It is doubtful, for example, that the will of the Guyanese people was being exercised when there were restrictions placed on the importation of flour – restrictions that amounted to a virtual ban on this basic staple. But then again the parliament and the government that was engaged in this practice were described as undemocratic and therefore not reflective of the will of the people.
Since the democratic dispensation of 1992 there have been many acts of parliament that may not have had the approval of the majority of the population of this country and therefore it is hard to see how anyone can stretch the concept of the will of the people to apply to majority support in the National Assembly.
The will of the people is about what the people want. Parliamentarians and the people are not always of the same views. If they were, there would have been no need for elections, because the wishes of the majority in the House would have always been that of the people.
It is therefore far too ambitious for anyone to posit that decisions in the National Assembly reflect the will of the people. They do not because the concept of the will of the people is not exercised indirectly or through proxies.
The government is formed by the will of the people, but the government does not always exercise the will of the people.
When the government urged the former Minister of Home Affairs to resign they were not succumbing to the will of the people, nor were they pressured by the opposition. In fact there was a Commission of Inquiry that exonerated the Minister of the charges of which he was being accused and thus the government had a solid basis on which to retain the minister.
The government succumbed to the will of the United States of America who made it clear that they wanted the minister to go and would find it difficult to cooperate in the security sector with the government if the minister remained. Political authority is based on the will of the people, but is not always exercised in the interests of the people, as history as so often demonstrated and as Guyanese are so well aware.
To establish just what is the will of the people requires that one looks beyond what takes place in parliament. In other countries with a tradition of polling, opinion polls are one of the means by which any government or politician can know whether any policy being proposed will enjoy support of the people and to determine the extent of that support.
Opinion polls have become quite scientific, but unfortunately Guyana does not have a tradition of conducting such polls, and the few that are conducted are often accused of being biased and flawed.
If we had that tradition, it would be easier to determine whether there is majority support for the removal of the present Minister of Home Affairs, if the people are supportive of gagging the minister, if for that matter Roger Khan is a hero or just who the supporters of the opposition feel should really be the leader of the PNCR and the AFC.

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