Discrediting the Carter formula

Nov 06, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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David Hinds, a political analyst, was not part of the local political landscape in the run-up to the 1992 general elections in Guyana, As such, he can be excused for his ill-informed comments about the Carter formula which was used not just to select the Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission but also to constitute the Commission.
We are in a political season where arguments are being contrived to justify the indefensible. As such, one can understand where Hinds is coming from when he makes a number of erroneous and baseless assertions, about the Carter formula, in his weekly column in the Guyana Chronicle.
The first of these is that the Carter Formula was intended as a stop-gap measure. Hinds has not provided a shred of evidence to support his contention.
The Carter formula emerged out of discussions which were held in Guyana between the Council of Freely Elected Heads of Government, then headed by Jimmy Carter, and the political parties and government of Guyana.
Carter had paid a visit in October on 1990, at the same time that the controversy erupted over the voters’ list of the 1991 elections. It was during the course of that visit that agreement was reached on two main concerns of the then opposition which at the time included the WPA.
The first was the need for a new voters’ list. It was agreed that a new list would be complied on the basis of a new house-to-house registration process. Secondly, agreement was also reached on the contentious issue of a preliminary count of the ballots at the places of poll. The elections laws were amended to give effect to these agreements. A constitutional amendment, justified under the doctrine of necessity, was also passed to extend the life of parliament.
No agreement, however, was reached on the issue of the expansion and reconstitution of the Guyana Elections Commission. It was not until a subsequent visit led by the now late George Price, the former Prime Minister of Belize that agreement was reached on the composition of the Elections Commission. The agreement was for two additional members to be chosen by the ruling party, two more members by the opposition and the chairman to be chosen by the President from a list submitted by the opposition.
This was the agreement reached and which is now known as the Carter formula. It is contained in a report which the Council of Freely Elected Heads of Government prepared. That report should be tabled in the case presently before the court challenging the unilateral appointment of the Chairman of GECOM. The report indicates the formula and how it was arrived at.
There was nothing in the formula about ‘fit and proper’, judge-like qualities and all the jazz that we are now hearing. The Carter formula was clear:  The Chairperson would be chosen from a list submitted by the opposition.
It was in giving legal effect to the formula that the old formula was retained alongside the new formula and the new formula qualified by the criteria of ‘fit and proper’. The underlying principle was always, however, the Chairperson would be elected by consensus.
The formula was never considered as a stop-gap measure. There was a constitutional reform process, following the 1997 elections, of which the WPA was a part. The reform process retained the Carter formula.  It therefore could never have been a stop-gap measure as is now being alleged.
It is equally fallacious to contend that gridlock was built into the formula. The very basis of having a consensus chairman and an odd number of commissioners was intended to break any deadlock.
It must be noted also that the persons who are selected by the various political parties to be members of the Commission, are not party representatives on the Commission, even though they may vote along party lines.
The Carter formula was therefore not a risky venture. A consensus candidate as Chairman of a seven member Commission would ensure that there was no gridlock.
But one understands why David Hinds is taking the positions that the formula was a stop- gap measure and gridlock in a feature. The defenders of the President’s unilateral appointment of the Chairman of GECOM are being intellectually stretched to defend his actions.
The government side now has four appointments as against three from the opposition. And so, the defenders of the government are now trying to discredit the Carter formula to demonstrate that it was terminally defective.
The defenders of unilateralism should be reminded that it was the same formula which was used to appoint Election Commissions which ran elections that were certified as free and fair by international observers, in 1992, 1997, 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2015.

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