A growing intolerance

Feb 02, 2019 Editorial

Ever since the ‘yes’ vote by Government Member of Parliament, Charrandass Persaud, the country has been abuzz about impending elections. However, the move to the elections has not been as straightforward as it should be.
For starters, the government opted to challenge the validity of the vote. In doing so it opened the proverbial can of worms. Now those Members of Parliament who hold dual citizenship must either surrender their foreign citizenship or simply refuse the appointment to be a Member of Parliament.
For some time, this issue has been surfacing but none of the political parties paid it any mind. Every one of them kept appointing their members regardless of their dual citizenship. On Thursday, Chief Justice Roxane George affirmed the constitutional dictate that no one who holds citizenship of a foreign country could sit in the National Assembly.
Then there was the hullaballoo about what constitutes a simple majority in Guyana’s Parliament. The opposition no-confidence motion prevailed by a single vote. However, by some convoluted logic the government decided that the majority should be thirty-four.
This matter should not have gone to court because the constitution was clear about what constitutes a simple majority. Nevertheless, it took the Chief Justice to make a determination but it does not end there. The government is taking the matter further—to the highest court in the region.
This is not making the opposition any happier. As far as the political opposition is concerned there must be elections within three months of the no confidence motion. That is not going to happen. The result is that there is now developing a sharp division in the society. Schisms are developing where patches once existed.
Distrust is common. People are critical of everything one or the other party does. For example, more than twenty-five years ago the two major political parties agreed that the Guyana Elections Commission needed to be revamped to make it less susceptible to political interference.
They further agreed that the elections commission would determine its readiness for elections and that has been the case over the years. The commission planned its timetable and conducted all the elections. Today, because of the no confidence vote the commission is being asked to succumb to political directives. It must hold elections immediately.
Last year, the major political parties agreed that the voters’ list needed to be sanitized. Money was voted for house-to-house registration. But the desire by the opposition to go to the polls is forcing a shunning of the house-to-house registration agreement.
There are many other issues that now come to the fore. People are accusing each other of dishonesty. And there seems to be growing intolerance and impatience. In some quarters there is impatience to see the back of the present government.
And the government is insisting that the opposition is seeking to reinstitute a reign laced with corruption and victimization. But both have been accused of the same thing.
There was the denial of certain jobs for anyone who seemed to be an opponent. This is not as rare as it seems and merely highlights the fact that the country is prepared to forego skilled and qualified people for political fealty.
Now there is oil on the horizon and the popular view is that the political parties are keen to remain in power because of the promised oil wealth. This, of course, could make any government look good but then again it is what the government does with the money.

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