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Apr 15, 2013 Editorial

We are pleased that the three political parties in Parliament will be meeting this morning in an attempt to reach consensus on Budget 2013. The process is as important as the outcome in a polity as divided as ours.
If the leaders of the three parties can be convinced that each is concerned about the best path forward for the country, then even if they disagree on specific allocations when their MP’s constitute themselves into the Committee of Supply, the road ahead will be less rocky.
We should never have come to this type of standoff to begin with. Now is not the time to be looking back in anger or pointing fingers as to which party “started it”. Surely, this is the only governing party in the world that has a minority in the Legislature and cannot concede that it would have to make some concessions to pass its budget.
Guyana is probably unique in that a party commanding only a plurality of the seats in the House, can automatically form the government through the stipulation in the Constitution (Art 177-2). In a similar situation in other parliaments there are other traditions.
That party with the plurality may invite another party to form a coalition that would give them a majority to pass its bills and budgets in the House (as happened in Britain after their last elections).
The party initiating the coalition talks would obviously understand and accept that it would have to make some concessions to the prospective partner. Or else, what would be the incentive for the latter to come aboard?
In a small number of cases, especially in Canada and New Zealand, the party with the plurality was asked to form the government but did not secure a coalition majority. They accepted however, that there had to be constant negotiations with the other parties in Parliament to form majorities to pass bills or budgets.
While, as we mentioned, there is the uniqueness of our Constitutional stipulation, we believe that it does not relieve the government with a minority from the need to seek consensus with other parties to secure a majority in Parliament.
The legitimacy of laws and constitutions, including our Article 177 (2) ultimately rests on the ‘consent of the governed’. Surely the government must concede that with an absolute majority (over 50 % of the votes) being the standard for ‘democratic’ legitimacy ever since democracy made its comeback a couple of hundred of years ago, it is depending on the quirk of a regime that was widely accepted as illegitimate to buttress its credentials. Some acknowledgement must be given to numbers if we hark to the ideal of “we, the people”.
But on the other hand the Opposition must acknowledge the existential reality of the constitution that allocated the Executive to the PPP. We all stand or fall by this document, which is the contract between the state and the people.
We ‘cherry-pick’ its articles at our peril if it is done outside the ambit of the procedures laid down for their alteration. Until Article 177(2) is revised by Parliament, the government must be given leeway in the area of policy formulation.
It is for this reason we have advised that when it comes specifically to the consideration of the estimates of the budget, the Opposition cannot introduce new policy measures but rather seek to amend the quantum of financing sought by the Executive.
But here, the Opposition is caught in a bind presented by the provisional decision of the Chief Justice that the Opposition cannot make cuts to the budget.
It is our position that this decision reduces the National Assembly to a veritable rubber stamp, which therefore vitiates the very essence of consent in democratic governance.
The Chief Justice must be exhorted to deliver his final judgement from which the Opposition can make the appeal that it has already signaled.
We hope that this morning, the Opposition will not insist on policy changes and that the President will not insist on refusing some cuts to the budget.

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