Local Govt. Elections: The August deadline

Mar 17, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

Local Government Elections cannot be held by August. Indeed, they should not be held at all this year.
Under the existing laws of Guyana, it is the Minister of Local Government who has to advise the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) as to a date for the holding of these elections. And the Minister is rightly not advising that GECOM begin plans for the holding of these elections.
This has nothing to do with the Bill that was not given assent by the President and which some feel would have allowed for Local Government Elections by August. It also has nothing to do with the PPPC’s fear of losing the elections.
These two grounds have been posited as the reasons for the seeming reluctance on the part of the PPPC to move ahead with the elections. Both of these reasons are without merit.
Firstly, the reason why the President has not given assent to one of four Local Government Bills has to do with his opinion on the constitutionality of aspects of that Bill, specifically provisions relating to the work of the proposed Local Government Commission.
Elements within the opposition have argued that it is not the President that is required to pronounce on the constitutionality of legislation. They point out that it is the Court that is so empowered.
Indeed they are correct. The Court is the competent authority to pronounce of the constitutionality of legislation. But the President and indeed all public officers have sworn to uphold the Constitution. If in their opinion there is something that is unconstitutional, they are duty bound not to proceed with it. To do otherwise would be to deliberately commit acts that are unconstitutional. The President and all public officers would be violating their oath of office if they believed in their hearts that something was wrong and still went ahead and did it.
Those who feel that for the purposes of assent, the President is not required to consider whether he feels it is unconstitutional, have an option to test this proposition by asking the Court to determine this question. But instead of doing this, they are resorting to arguments which are highly contestable and indeed untenable even to basic common sense.
How is it, for example, that the Constitution gives to the President the power to veto a bill, yet it can still be argued by the opposition that he cannot refuse to assent on the basis that certain provisions in a Bill conflict with the Constitution?
Is the opposition saying, for example, that they will pass a Bill allowing the police and customs officers to arbitrarily deprive a citizen of his or her property, something that is not in accordance with the fundamental right of citizens under the Constitution, and when such a Bill goes before the President, he is obligated to give his assent?
Are they saying that he should assent and then make a fool of himself by having his legal advisers file an appeal against his own actions before a Court to deem his assent as unlawful since there are provisions in the Bill to which assent was given that were unconstitutional?
If the opposition parties are so confident that the President’s actions in not assenting to Bills passed by the National Assembly are unconstitutional, they are free to approach the Court for a declaration to the effect that the President is compelled to give his assent.
But the opposition parties are not doing this and for obvious reasons. They probably know that what they are peddling about automatic assent is political propaganda to confuse those who are uninitiated in constitutional law.
Or is it because they have found themselves in a bind; on the one hand arguing that the Court is the competent authority to pronounce on the constitutionality of legislation, and on the other hand refusing to accept the declarations of the Court in relation to the constitutionality of acts of the National Assembly which the Court found are not in accordance with the Constitution, the highest law in the land?
The second reason advanced for the refusal of the Minister of Local Government to not give the go-ahead with Local Government Elections has to do with the fear that the PPP will lose those polls. Well, while there was indeed complacency on the part of PPP supporters in the 2011 General and Regional Elections, the PPP still won the presidency, comfortably. They had done so also in 1992 and two years after had swept Local Government polls by a landslide.
Since their setback in 2011, the PPP has been working hard within their constituencies. But the Opposition is free to comfort itself with the view that PPP is fearful of an electoral humiliation and is therefore delaying the holding of Local Government Elections. But while they are comforting themselves with this view, the PPP is doing the legwork amongst the people.
The true reason why Local Government Elections cannot be held is simple. It would be reckless to hold elections this year because there is a new system of Local Government Elections. The people need to be educated on this new system.
Right now the great majority of the people are not yet sufficiently familiar with this new Local Government Electoral System, which is a mixture of both proportional representation and a constituency system.
Until such time as the public understands the system, it would be reckless to go ahead and have Local Government Elections. Unless the public understands the system, they will go into the polling booth and not a have a clue as to what to do.
The need to publicly educate the country about the new system is the reason, and the only reason why Local Government Elections cannot be held this year.

---

---