The Constitution of Guyana is not a PPP/C creation

Aug 30, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – It is true that the PPP/C once described the present Constitution of Guyana as one of the most advanced in the Caribbean by virtue of the many provisions that allow for greater political inclusiveness.
However, this inclusiveness does not go as far as power sharing in the sense that the opposition parties now want.
It must be recalled that at the time of the Herdmanston Accord, which led to the reforms of the Constitution, the then opposition leader, Mr. Desmond Hoyte was not yet a convert of power-sharing.
The provision within the present Constitution allows for greater oversight by parliament, for certain appointments to require consultations with the Opposition leader and others for there to be agreement.
The amendments also allowed for the establishment of a number of previously non-existent commissions. The powers of the Executive President were also pared.
The Constitution now allows for a no-confidence motion to trigger the dissolution of parliament without the President having the option of dissolving parliament before any such motion is heard. Some of the powers of the President have been reduced.
A number of other changes were enacted to the 1980 Constitution. These have allowed the PPP/C to claim that the present Constitution is one of the most progressive in the Caribbean. However, the fact that the PPP/C can make such a boast does not in any event make the Constitution of Guyana, a PPP Constitution. No Sir! It does not!
The Burnham touch is still very much in evident. What we have is not a PPP constitution but an amended 1980 Constitution whose skeletal features are still very much Burnhamite in nature.
The Executive presidency has not been dismantled. The provision that was part of the 1980 Constitution that allows the party with the most votes to secure the Presidency still remains intact.
The powers of the President though pared remain powerful. The Head-of-State is still Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
The present Constitution is not a PPP Constitution because the PPP did not have its own way with the Constitutional Reform Process; it had to deal with the PNC/R and with the other forces.
The PPP did not recreate a new Constitution. The reform process, instead, involved amendments to the 1980 Constitution, amendments that were significant but not deep or sweeping enough to dislodge the backbone of the 1980 document.
As such, the present Constitution cannot be labelled a PPP Constitution. The PPP did not have the freedom to remake the Constitution as Burnham had in 1980.
The PPP did not have a two-thirds majority to amend the Constitution in the way it may have wanted, not that it may have wanted to touch certain of the highly criticised provisions of the 1980 document.
Burnham, on the other hand, was able to table a new Constitution which was drafted by a Constituent Assembly that was the product of a fraudulent referendum. Burnham thus had his own way with the 1980 Constitution which made him the supreme Emperor of Guyana.
This 1980 Constitution satisfied Burnham’s ambitions for absolute power. It also created a number of organs that were consistent with a socialist political system modelled after the Cuban system and a presidency that was patterned after the Presidency of Zambia.
The PNC/R was never, in the Constitutional Reform Process, going to give the PPP a blank cheque to dismantle the foundations of the Constitution that was created by its founder-leader Forbes Burnham.
It was not going to delete some of the socialist rights such as the right to work. Incidentally, there is now the right to leisure. It was not even prepared to change the name of the country to the Republic of Guyana rather than the misnomer of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana. Guyana is not a cooperative republic now is it in transition to socialism. However, to change that was unthinkable in so far as the PNC was concerned.
To dismantle these social and economic rights would have been an insult to Forbes Burnham. The PNC/R was never going to hand to the Constitutional Reform Process its support to dismantle the constitutional framework that was the handiwork of Forbes Burnham.
Yeah, the PPP is comfortable with the new Constitution. The party was, in fact, very comfortable with the powers of the Presidency of the 1980 document to the point of arguing that the PPP holding these powers was not the same as the PNC holding them.
The PPP lacked a two-thirds majority in parliament to change the 1980 Constitution. The demands of economic reconstruction were so great that they had not the time to delve into contemplating a referendum so that they could gain the majority to change the Constitution. Constitutional reform was never their priority until the Herdmanston Accord.