The winner takes it all

Jan 10, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News- There was little talk during the one-term reign of the APNU+AFC about the need for new forms of national governance. But no sooner did the PPP/C return to office, the need for reform of the ‘winner-take-all-system of government is being resurrected.
In a public discourse which was aired on national television after the PPP/C had comprehensively won the 1997 elections, the then head of Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha of Trinidad and Tobago, Sat Maharaj, confronted a local Opposition politician by observing that it is only when an Indian government is in power in Guyana that the talk about power sharing becomes pronounced.
Whenever the PPP/C is in Opposition or does not have a majority in the National Assembly, the demands for power sharing tend to disappear into thin air. After the 2011 elections for example, the PNC/R and the AFC moved quickly to exploit its one-seat combined parliamentary majority. It took command of key committees depriving the government of the day of its majority. When the Donald Ramotar administration engaged the Coalition and it appeared imminent that a compromise on the Budget could have been achieved, there was a sudden about-turn by the Coalition and the agreement was jettisoned. The Coalition then used its one-seat majority to chop and cut the Budget. Instead of compromise, it fostered confrontation. Power sharing went through the window.
During its elections campaign of 2015, the PNC/R promised that should it secure victory, it would include the PPP/C in the government. In its Manifesto, the APNU+AFC said that the practice of winner-takes-all would become history. But no sooner had the Coalition settled into office, this promise was abandoned.
The PNC/R, as the dominant party within the 2015 Coalition government, moved quickly towards dominating the AFC. The post of Prime Minister was denuded of any effective authority or any significant portfolio. And the AFC meekly succumbed to the dictates and diktat of the PNC/R.
The PNC/R effectively marginalised the AFC and the WPA in the Coalition. The AFC was dumped as a partner to contest the 2018 Local Government Elections. Another small part, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) complained bitterly about not participating in the decision-making of the APNU. One of its leaders labelled the Coalition a one-party government.
One of its leaders went as far as saying that the government should apologise to its supporters because, among other things, the supporters did not vote for a one-party government.
By the time the 2020 elections campaign come along, the APNU+AFC was a house divided. The decisions which ensured this divided Coalition were not the work of any one man. It was the work of the PNC/R whose Central Executive would have had to endorse the decision taken, for example, to go without the AFC in the 2018 Local Government Elections and to downgrade the number of seats which would be allocated to the AFC in the revised Cummingsburg Accord. The PNC/R would have also had to approve of the plans to demote one of the architects of Big Tent and Coalition politics, Dr. Rupert Roopnarine.
The Coalition went into the elections lacking trust among its two main parties. Despite the commitment that Khemraj Ramjattan would be the Prime Ministerial candidate, the PNC/R was initially reluctant to introduce him as such at its early rallies, and there remained uncertainty as to whether this promise would have been kept, had the APNU+AFC won the elections.
Coalition politics failed. And power sharing was not even considered. There is no successful model locally and internationally on which to pattern shared governance on.
But the change in the country’s demographics has created room at least if not for power sharing for political accommodation. No ethnic or racial group can now, on its own, command a majority of the votes.
A new moment has arrived, one unfortunately none of the main political parties is ready for. The conditions are ripe for greater political inclusion. But when political parties, like the PNC/R are more obsessed with grabbing all the political space and not even sharing power internally, there is not much hope even for political inclusion. A weak and undeveloped civil society also means that inclusion can be ignored by the main parties.
Rupert Roopnarine once suggested power sharing at the lowest common denominator – at the local government level. This proposal was rejected. And as we are, there is reluctance to share power at the level of the party.
The new PNC/R leadership implicitly admits that there is internal factionalism. It says that it wants unity. But it wants unity with total domination by the existing leadership – its wants corn and husk. The PNC/R wants the Leader of the party to be Leader of the Opposition and Representative of the List. The party wants the winner to take it all.
The chatter about reforming the winner-take-all model will be sustained over the next five years. But the demand will only be for the winner not to take all at the national level. In so far as party politics is concerned unity means an all-powerful maximum leader.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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