The WPA is shameless

Oct 30, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

The Working People’s Alliance (WPA) has finally broken its silence on the unilateral appointment by the President of a Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission. In so doing, the WPA has prostituted its once high principles. The WPA has reduced itself to a doormat of the APNU and the AFC.
The WPA has admitted that it was sidelined in the decision of appointment of the Chairman. It had assured the nation that following an engagement with APNU that guarantees were given about its involvement in the decision-making of the government.
It got its answer a few days later. The very government which it was hoping would consult with it, decided to not accept the resignation of Dr. Rupert Roopnarine. The WPA had been hoping to have Roopnarine replaced by one of its own so that it could have a representative in government. It is still without a representative in government. Yet it wants to be taken seriously by its latest shameless and spineless position taken in relation to the appointment of the Chairman of GECOM.
The WPA says that the President acted within the letter of the law. It does not explain how it has arrived at this extraordinary position. Like some of the supporters of the government who are now trying to defend the decision of the President, the WPA seems to ignore the fact that there is a legal precedent when it comes to interpreting Article 161 of the Constitution which deals with the appointment of the Chairman.
Many of the supporters of the government are now offering their interpretation of the Constitution, forgetting that the very interpretation which they are now offering was rejected by the Court.
The precedent which stands is that not all the names on the list submitted by the Leader of the Opposition have to be not unacceptable to the President. The Leader of the Opposition is not required to provide six names which the President finds as not unacceptable. It is the President who has to find someone from the list who is not unacceptable and this is why names can be substituted.
The WPA however, like the supporters of the President, are ignoring a legal precedent in the interest of political convenience. The WPA wants to exculpate from the mess that the President created from day one when he came up with the bizarre notion that the person to be appointed has to be a judge or someone qualified to be a judge. That position was rejected by the Court.
It is disingenuous and cowardly of the WPA to be trying to deflect blame to the PPPC which it said set out to compromise the process so as to embarrass the government. The WPA cannot be serious by this descent into political fantasy. It was the opposition which at all times tried to reach an agreement, even going as far as asking the President, which it was under no obligation to do, to indicate the criteria that would be agreeable to him.
The WPA knows who it was that took months to study the CV of the persons on the various lists. It knows full well who claimed there was a need to consult with political partners before a decision was made. It was left out in the cold. It is now trying to come in from the cold by prostituting itself in front of the APNU+AFC.
The WPA is trying to save face because it was not consulted on the appointment of a Chair of GECOM. It says such a role is not contemplated by the Constitution which leaves the choice to the Leader of the Opposition. But was it not the President who two months ago who when asked whether he has chosen anyone as yet, said he was studying the CVs and wanted to consult with his political partners. Obviously the WPA was not part of that consultation.
The WPA needs to be reminded that under the Constitution it is the President who has full executive authority. But this does not preclude the President from consulting. Similarly, there was nothing fettering the President from consulting with the WPA on the appointment of a Chairman of GECOM.
The WPA is suffering from selective amnesia. It says that there was never going to be any good outcome to the process without constitutional reform. Has the WPA forgotten that it was the very Carter formula which had allowed two of its nominees, Doodnauth Singh and Steve Surujbally to be appointed as Chairpersons of the Guyana Elections Commission? Has it forgotten that before this rigmarole by President David Granger there was never a problem with using the said formula to choose a Chairperson?
The WPA pushes its chest in the air and announces that should the next elections be rigged, it would resign from government. Who says that the WPA is going to still be part of the government by the time the next election comes around? Why does the WPA believe that it is part of the present government when it does not have a representative in Cabinet? The WPA needs to get off its knees before it sinks further into the ‘suck sand’ of political irrelevance.

---

---