HOW ABOUT ROTATING THE PRESIDENCY?

Nov 20, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Former executive member of the Peoples National Congress Reform, Mr. Sherwood Lowe has developed a most insightful framework that is necessary for intra-coalition power sharing. His letter published in yesterday’s Stabroek News is worth reading, because it assesses the relationship within the ruling coalition on the basis of a framework of features.
Lowe makes a number of criticisms of the existing arrangements within the coalition. Firstly, he says “we have seen no accord prior to or since the election on the structures, procedures and rules for collective decision-making, information-sharing, and conflict resolution”. Secondly there is no effective Cabinet Committee. Thirdly, the system of having watch-dog junior ministers is superficial; and finally there is lack of declared governance principles. He suggests that the absence of these features may be driving the composite elements of the governing coalition into one party.
The conclusion obviously does not follow from the criticisms. In fact, it may not be at all the case that the various parties comprising APNU+ AFC are coalescing into a single political entity. The WPA leaders have been vocal against the composition of the State Boards and have denounced the salary increases. The AFC has not mutated into the PNC or integrated into that party.
What is at work is that the PNC is running the country. The PNC is dominating the government and in the interest of unity, the other parties are falling in line. There is a power imbalance that has created this falling in line. The PNC’s support base far exceeds that of all the other parties combined, and therefore it is at liberty to do as it pleases, since the smaller parties are in no position to influence the coalition government without threatening to exit the coalition, which risks disassembling the coalition.
The theory, therefore, that the coalition is converting to a single party, is a weak theory. There is little evidence to support this. What we have instead is one-party domination of the coalition government.
The Cummingsburg Accord for all intents and purposes is dead. The AFC should not try to resurrect this agreement or to salvage it. It was a pre-election agreement useful for defeating the most powerful party this country has ever seen, the PPP. The PPP’s twenty-three-year run ended because enough people were convinced by the Cummingsburg Accord to vote for the coalition. The agreement ran into problems from day one of the new government.
This embarrassment should not, however, have prevented the smaller parties from negotiating a new pact with the PNC for post-election arrangements. The failure of the smaller parties of the coalition to do this has hurt them and has made them subservient to the PNC, under the present governance arrangements.
But even if such an arrangement can be now pressed for (it is doubtful whether there is the political will to do this), there is an elephant in the room. This elephant is the powers of the Presidency.
The powers of the Presidency – especially the vesting of all executive authority in the Presidency – will marginalize all parties in any coalition. Constitutional reform promised under the Cummingsburg Accord was never expected to see the light of day, because the coalition was never going to win a two-thirds majority.
Lowe has advanced some useful mechanisms to ensure that there is intra-coalition power sharing. These can form the basis of a post-election agreement by the coalition parties. However, unless the powers of the Presidency are addressed, whichever party holds the Presidency will dominate the government.
If the coalition members do not wish to press for a reduction in the powers of the Presidency by administrative and voluntary caveat rather than through constitutional change, then the only solution would be to have a system of a rotating Presidency between the PNC and the AFC.

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HOW ABOUT ROTATING THE PRESIDENCY?

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