The AFC needs to do more soul-searching

Jul 26, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The AFC continues to adversely comment on the decision of one of its then members, Charrandass Persaud, to support a no-confidence motion against his own government in December 2018. The legal arguments adopted by the Opposition parties in relation to Persaud’s vote have long been debunked and discredited.

Instead of continuing its criticisms of Persaud, the AFC’s leadership should concentrate its efforts more at introspection about its failure to comply with the established convention, and constitutional requirement in Guyana in relation to the passage of a no-confidence motion. That Constitution mandates that upon such passage against a government, the Cabinet shall resign. The APNU+AFC government refused to comply and used specious arguments in and outside of the courts, including about what constitutes the minimum majority of 65.

Now, they are resorting to describing the vote by Charrandass Persaud as an act of sabotage. They are free to do so but he certainly has a right to vote in accordance with his conscience. He is not compelled by law or convention to always vote along party lines. The AFC seems to have forgotten that there was man named Tello who once voted against his party in the said National Assembly and that was deemed legal and permissible.

In United Democratic Party v Speaker of the National Assembly of South Africa and Others, the Constitutional Court of South Africa addressed the issue of members of the National Assembly voting according to their conscience.  In defending the right of a member of the National Assembly to follow the dictates of personal conscience, the Court observed that central to the freedom to follow the dictates of personal conscience is the oath of office.

The Court stated, “Members are required to swear or affirm faithfulness to the Republic and obedience to the Constitution and laws. Nowhere does the supreme law provide for them to swear allegiance to their political parties, important players though they are in our constitutional scheme. Meaning, in the event of conflict between upholding constitutional values and party loyalty, their irrevocable undertaking to in effect serve the people and do only what is in their best interests must prevail”.

The Court added quite poignantly that, “When the risk that inheres in voting in defiance of the instructions of one’s party is evaluated, it must be counter-balanced with the apparent difficulty of being removed from the Assembly”.

The Court, in other words, was making a pitch for persons to be free to vote on a no-confidence motion in accordance with their conscience, but being aware that doing so can lead to being recalled.

The Caribbean Court of Justice adopted the same line. It also added that nothing in the anti-defection regime established at Article 156(3) of the Constitution rendered Mr. Persaud incapable of casting his vote on that motion in the manner in which he did. The CCJ held that while the Constitution contained provisions that prevented members from ‘crossing the floor’ and gave the representative of each, both the Government and the Opposition the power to recall and replace a member, those provisions could not, and were not, meant to prevent members from voting as they wished.

As such, the CCJ rejected the submission that Charrandass Persaud was absolutely required to vote against the motion of no-confidence along with other members of the Government. It held that there was nothing preventing Persaud from voting in favour of the motion.

The AFC is free however to hold the opinion that Persaud’s vote represented an act of ‘sabotage’.  But this does not deny that it was lawful and that it was within the right of Persaud to vote in accordance with his conscience.

After that vote, Persaud acquired hero status among sections of the Guyanese electorate. But he may have blundered and removed some of the gloss from his heroic status when he opted to accept the post of Guyana’s High Commissioner to India. In so doing, he has opened himself to the criticism and to the perception that his appointment may have been, as the AFC is now representing, as a ‘reward’ for his vote.

But he would not have been alone in accepting appointments after the new government was sworn-in. Almost of all of the prominent persons who spoke about against the attempt to rig the elections, have enjoyed some form of appointment.

If the AFC is serious about an objective assessment about its role in government and during the elections’ imbroglio, then it has to accept the fact that it acted undemocratically and unconstitutionally when it sought to frustrate what should have happened following the no-confidence vote of 2018 and what it did after the 2020 elections

The party should recall the words of its former Treasurer who in June 2020 issued a statement which said that supporters of the APNU+AFC were misled into believing that the Coalition had won the election and that there was then a deliberate attempt to discredit the entire elections. As part of its anticipated review of its past actions, will the AFC align itself with these sentiments?

(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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• APNU+AFC, Cabinet, Charrandass Persaud, Government, opposition

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