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Int’l Community has key role in nation’s political future – Ramkarran
Despite the constitutional crisis facing the Government as a result of the no-confidence motion, the international community appears to be taking a sympathetic approach to the ruling A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change, (APNU-AFC) Coalition.
This is according to Political Commentator and Attorney-at-law, Ralph Ramkarran, S.C. In his blog site Conversation Tree, Ramkarran a former Speaker of the National Assembly, noted that the International Community has a key role in nation’s political future.
Attorney-at-law, Ralph Ramkarran
Noting the dilemma of the Opposition People Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) faces in getting the international community to address government’s violation of the constitution, Ramkarran, a former stalwart of the party, says that the PPP/C has never had the capacity to mount effective confrontations against the PNC while in opposition.
“It has always had to rely on the international community. It did so unsuccessfully during its long years in opposition from 1964. It is only the end of the Cold War, when it was no longer seen as a security threat to the US, that the latter allowed free and fair elections.
Today a similar dilemma faces the PPP. It does not have the street muscle or the industrial strength to challenge the APNU+AFC coalition. And APNU+AFC will not budge from its determination to remain in power for as long as possible, regardless of what the Constitution says.”
The former Speaker noted that the PPP’s resort is once again to the international community.
However, he noted some members of the group, which the party aggressively attacked in the past, are believed to be generally sympathetic to the APNU+AFC Government.
In the midst of its increasingly plaintive call for the international community to pressure the Government, he pointed out that President Trump’s failure to call on the Government to adhere to the Constitution, or at least to express his hope that it will do so, or even to hint that the US has expectations as to how the Government will act at this time, in his Republic Day message to President Granger, is significant.
“It indicates a potentially soft response by the US if the Government remains in office beyond March 21.
Faced with the potential dilemma of inaction by the international community, with the decline of the Indian population creating the uncertainty of obtaining an absolute majority at the elections, whenever held, and the PPP’s predilection for choosing its least optimal presidential candidates, it needs to define a new strategy.”
Nevertheless, the political commentator believes now is the time for the international community to make a final push to engineer a permanent solution to Guyana’s governance problem which unless the opportunity is seized, will continue for decades into the future.
“No matter how much we hope and plead for Guyana’s leaders to resolve our problems themselves that will not happen. The ethno-political fears are too deeply embedded in our society to permit a resolution by discourse. It’s not that they are bad people. It’s that they are driven by forces that they cannot harness and would not acknowledge. Like all Guyana, they are in an ethno-political prison, from which they cannot escape, without help”
He suggested therefore that outstanding international figures, former US President Jimmy Carter and Baroness Valerie Amos can play an instrumental role in final solution.
“They are also very committed to, even if perhaps exasperated by, Guyana’s politics to mediate a resolution of this current crisis, but in doing so, to transform the future of Guyana. To resolve the current crisis, to prevent future political crises and to prevent Guyana’s oil wealth form being dissipated in corruption, shared executive governance, to which both parties have already committed, needs to be a subject of the mediation process.”
In the meantime, Ramkarran believes that no kind of mediation can be successful unless the international community shows no tolerance for violations of the Constitution.
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