Coalition Govt: The danger of power-sharing

May 28, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Why were the Stabroek Square vendors removed? The official explanation was that it was part of the determined effort after May 2015 to get Georgetown back to its pristine self. If that was the honest reason then people bought into it. I have heard strong supporters of the working classes say that Georgetown must be cleaned; there is no alternative. But in sympathy they opined that City Council (is it City Council or the Town Clerk) should have long arranged alternative accommodation.
If the motive was not a straight forward one then the Government was smart because no citizen would disagree that the Stabroek Square needed to be spruced up. My point adumbrated in several columns is that there isn’t a scientific incompatibility between vending at the Stabroek Square and ensuring the ambience is clean.
Therefore for me, there was no exigency in evicting these very small retailers. Well it looks like mouth open story jump out. Prior and during the negation of the vendors there was no word in any official forum that the float parade would be moving off from the Stabroek Square
Suddenly the route to D’Urban Park had changed from Camp and Church Streets to Stabroek Square. But at this point there was no indication of duplicity. What could have happened is that after seeing how inviting and empty the site was, the planners of the May 26 celebrations may have decided that the Stabroek site was more accommodating for the parade.
Was this the way it happened? The facts may tell otherwise
Lancelot Kennedy, who recently obtained an injunction against the Town Clerk from demolishing his business at the site said that in discussion with the Town Clerk to have an alternative location for his business place, “Lance Photo Works,” Royston King indicated to him that he had to move because he, King, has to clear the Stabroek environment because the parade is to move off from there.
It is definitely possible then to offer the theory that the Square was the originally intended parade location but maybe the eviction of the sellers would not have gone down well
It is very difficult to sell a nation the story of the complete demobilization of over 300 vendors as a permanent process because for one day, just one day only, the government wants the float parade to move off from that site. Endless numbers of Guyanese would have reacted immediately and say why not choose another place.
It is my opinion that the central government ordered the vendors’ banishment and found in the City Council their perfect alibi. Since the clean-up campaign was going on, what better explanation that to say the transfer to Lombard Street was all part of the City Council’s endeavour to restore Georgetown.
I may be wrong but this is my opinion. And I am glad that two small business entities have obtained an injunction to restrain the Town Clerk from chasing them from a place they have been embedded in for many decades. If I am right; just suppose that I am right then the power-sharing theory in the Guyana context becomes problematic. There are strong views that Guyana’s only chance of survival is executive power-sharing between the PPP and PNC.
Lincoln Lewis, a good friend of mine who is General-Secretary of the TUC, has said repeatedly to me (he never misses an opportunity to play his stuck record) that power-sharing between the PNC and PPP will result in a dictatorship.
Let us suppose just for argument’s sake that the PNC was in power and the AFC was still enchantingly obsessed with its phenomenon as the most successful third party in the Caribbean politics, it is certain beyond questioning that the AFC would not have been silent about the mistreatment of the Stabroek vendors.
Executive power-sharing becomes dangerous when one examines the role of the AFC in the coalition. Sherod Duncan the Deputy Mayor is from the AFC not APNU. He is a strong supporter of the Town Clerk’s general action against all vending. Duncan was in frenetic embrace of the advocacy of a frenetic audit of the City Council operations the past decades. Duncan doesn’t speak about that anymore.
What we are seeing with the Stabroek vendor controversy is the danger inherent with power sharing but this incident has thrown wide open the theory of pluralism in the exercise of power. If there was another organization in control of the City Council, could central government have used them to clear away the vendors? The answer is no. I doubt Team Benschop, Team Legacy and Youth for Local Government would have become slaves to central government. Guyana is really a messy failure.

1 thoughts on “Coalition Govt: The danger of power-sharing”

george wiltshire May 28, 2016 at 3:41 pm

Freddie we have to start somewhere. Where better than to remove those who embrace lawlessness while while demanding action to get rid of the lawless. Judgement must begin at the house of God.