Sovereignty is exercised by the government

Mar 16, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The role of any opposition party is to hold the government’s feet to the fire. They are there to ensure that abuses by the government are exposed. More importantly, the role of the opposition is to offer alternative policies.
The role of the opposition, whether it holds a majority or a minority in the National Assembly, is not to try to run the country; that is the role of the government of the day.
The Constitution decides who is elected as the government and until those rules are changed to allow otherwise, then those rules bequeath to the government the authority to administer the affairs of the country.
The government is not obligated in so doing to agree with everything that the majority in the National Assembly says. Indeed, the President is not obligated to assent to any Members’ Bills passed. The Constitution itself allows a power of veto to the President. There is no parliamentary supremacy in Guyana. The government therefore does not have to capitulate to the will of the National Assembly. Those who therefore seek to demand automatic assent are either misguided or behaving like bullies.
If the government does capitulate to the demands of the National Assembly, it is not because they must, but because the political arithmetic may force them to make concessions.
Right now the political arithmetic is in favour of the opposition in so far as the National Assembly is concerned and therefore the government must be more predisposed towards political compromise.
The need for political compromise has nothing to do with democracy or sovereignty, as is being so casually being referred to these days. You can have democracy without political compromise between government and the opposition. Guyana has had almost twenty years of democracy without a great deal of political compromise between government and the opposition.
Sovereignty is a different concept and must not be confused with the results of the franchise. The will of the people is a distinct concept from sovereignty and must not be confused with it. Those who therefore believe that because they secured a majority of the votes at the last elections this gives them the right to exercise sovereignty are mixing-up concepts. That majority gives them an arithmetic advantage in the National Assembly, nothing more; nothing less. It does not repose in them the right to exercise sovereignty.
The government exercises sovereignty on behalf of the people. The government in turn is held in check by the opposition, whether a minority or a majority. Unless this is understood, Guyana will move rapidly down the slope of parliamentary tyranny.
No one expects an opposition party to support the government on every issue. There are, of course, issues on which the government and the opposition are free to agree, as they did recently on a number of pieces of legislation and motions.
It is perfectly legitimate for the opposition parties to use their majority in the National Assembly to extract concessions from the government. It is called quid pro quo:  I give you something in return for something.
But there are certain exceptions to the exercise of quid pro quo. When it comes to Guyana’s international obligations, political horse-trading or what the President calls political blackmail, should not be practiced
You can have a quid pro quo on the country’s Budget, but not when it comes to Guyana’s international obligations, and particularly when it relates to issues that can seriously affect the national interest. The national interest should come first and there should be no political blackmail, none whatsoever, when it comes to meeting Guyana’s international obligations.
Thus for example, the opposition should not jettison an amendment that may be required to allow for the free movement of persons under a regional agreement. Unless, of course, they disagree with that amendment.
Another example is if opposition parties withhold parliamentary approval for accession to the Caribbean Court of Justice, because they want to extract political concessions from the government, even though they agree to the accession.
These are issues that are concerned with Guyana’s international obligations and once the opposition has no problems with Guyana being part of meeting a specific obligation, it should not stand in the way of legislation to give effect to those obligations. There are certain things on which you simply do not play politics.
If the AFC wants the government to move with greater alacrity on the Procurement Commission, it should use the Budget to extract the necessary concessions. But to risk sanctions being imposed upon Guyana by the international community just to extract a concession is downright reckless.
As for APNU, which is pressing for assent to certain Bills, it has absolutely no case because, as mentioned before, there is no obligation for the government to do so since this would amount to giving the opposition a licence to run the government from the opposition benches.
The failure to so far meet an agreement, and with the noose tightening around Guyana’s neck, could force elections. But before that is considered, perhaps an opinion poll, a credible one should be conducted to determine just where the people stand on this one, and in so doing, to test those who claim to be exercising the will of the people by withholding support for the proposed Bill.

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