Six thousand for a seat

Feb 23, 2019 Editorial

Who is ready to step forward? After all the talking, posturing, and criticizing, will they be there?
Each of the new parties must attract some six thousand of the electorate to gain a seat in parliament. One seat for one group could potentially represent a difference-maker; one seat for each holds out the reality of domestic troubles in the legislative house. That might enable it to go from a marketplace to a less troubled, even constructive place.
But before any of this, whether one seat or two, a whole set of developments must occur and in a complementary sequence; any single slip, and it could be the same old story of specious words, shallow postures, and scorned work product. In other words, the new people have to get their visa first; this one is issued at the ballot box. Will they get that coveted stamp of approval?
For that to happen, the voters have to do more than show up; they have to show who they are, what all the pre-electoral palaver was about; what they stand for in terms of expectations for the future; and where the road really leads.
For one pivotal moment on that crucial day (still to be finalized), the Guyanese voter – eligible ones – gets to function as kingmaker, troublemaker, and possibly difference-maker from the age-old and the same old. At a minimum, it requires six thousand such voters to fill those just identified and oft-mentioned roles. In view of the voting history here, that is a whole kingdom for a horse with the very sensitive placement of that inerasable letter indicating how matters coalesce.
Now there is a word loaded with possibilities. For in Guyanese political culture, coalescing (as in coalition) is one dirty word. It has had a weak and spotted countenance; and citizens know that can come from more than a bad liver. It could be bad intentions, worse visions, and then the worst of all consequences. The inferences for the future are that more of the same could be set in motion.
Citizens have paid a hard price in the past; more of the same could be promised with any such development. One of the new groups has gone so far as to issue the reassurance of having scant interest in being part of any coalition. A word of caution might be helpful for the newcomers: it is easier to decide and act on the ideal of relinquishing dual citizenship holding: it is a finite and distinguishing act.
It is somewhat trickier and much more intricate where partnering through coalescing is involved. No coalescing has an impressive earthy ring and immaculacy, given the traditional political shabbiness. Yet it could creep up on house member and lawmaker with all the stealth of a fox; and the old hands at this local political game are as crafty as they come.
Think about this: a coalition does not have to be an officially and publicly binding circumstance. Just think legislative voting. The so-called swing vote (a perpetual no-confidence sword of Damocles) may end up with the pendulum stuck suspiciously in one corner. Continuously. Hence, the delivery of the actuality of an in-the-house coalition. That would be all that matters, with understandable and permissible abstentions and deviations on issues of lesser significance. And if constituents (that same heroic 6,000) could be made happy through the Guyanese equivalent of those storied American Congressional practices of horse-trading and pork barrels, it is off to the races. What will it take? What will it require for the probable one-seaters to deliver this way or that?
Consider this: To be an effective agent of change or a difference-maker is going to demand that, at some time or the other, one assumes the role of either icebreaker or bridgebuilder. Trouble lurks. Icebreakers are pushers or compromisers; and a bridgebuilder joins to the other side. Rev Ian Paisley of Northern Ireland famously labeled the latter traitorous. Newcomers should beware.