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When necessity displaces arrogance
Aug 22, 2013 Editorial
Some time back we commented on the apparent inability of the political parties to talk to each other. For as long as we could remember there has always been rancor between the parties. Indeed, they had always operated as though each knew what was best for the people although the parties rarely took time to discuss the issue with the people.
This has been the case ever since Guyana abolished the ‘first-past-the-post electoral system. This was a system that mandated those elected to office to meet with the people who vote with them. It further mandated that those elected always represent the interest of the voter.
Way back in 1964, in a move to ensure that the simple race vote would not continue, a certain political party in perpetuity with the consent of the British, facilitated a change in the electoral system. People began to vote for a political party and not an individual. They sacrificed their power for the good of the party. This was the first step in the present state of communication between the political parties.
From the days of Forbes Burnham in 1968 to today, there has been arrogance on the part of the political parties. In fact, things reached the stage where the politician in the ruling party has become even more powerful than the law enforcement officer.
Just a few days ago a young man drives a car and hits a pedestrian. He stops and his companion, rather than being sympathetic with the victim, accuses this victim and his friends of failing to watch where they walk. The police are called in and the parties all end up at the police station.
Things then moved to the stage where one sees the effect of the politician, who is now arrogant with power. It turns out that the father of the driver of the car is a Member of Parliament who accuses the victim of being a ‘junkie’, the derogatory term for a drug addict. The issue at hand is that the driver happened to have hit a drug crazed derelict.
The police inexplicably put the victim in the role of the person in the wrong and place him on bail while they released the driver, who people say was in the wrong. This is the kind of power that the people sacrificed when they opted for the electoral system of proportional representation.
There have been other cases of abuses of naked political power. People caught in the act of law-breaking have been able to get the police to remain neutral. For example, a politician who shot at a young man was not even questioned until the next day because the police refused to apprehend him.
This very politician knocks a man down and fails to stop. Again the police take little or no action even though the victim was one of their own. There has never been any attempt to prosecute the politician.
These are just some of the cases that suggest that politicians in the ruling party may be above the law. Recently, there was the case of the vote on the Chief Elections Officer. So divided were the political parties on the Elections Commission that it needed the vote of the Chairman of the Commission to cast the deciding vote. Notes of Commission meetings revealed many problems with the Chief Elections Officer but the Commissioners, who always try to hold out that they are independent, actually took the position of the political parties they represent.
In parliament, this situation is only revealed when serious issues are played out in the National Assembly. The divisive nature of the country came to the fore on the recent Amaila Falls hydroelectric project issue. There has been the accusation that the government was not prepared to discuss the issue with the political parties in parliament.
Initially there was arrogance. Information was not forthcoming and this continued until the insistence of the political parties to receive information led to the halting of the project. Now things that were never told are being told.
Once more we wonder what happened to the ability of politicians to talk to each other.
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