The official results of the Local Government Elections (LGE) were finally announced by GECOM, and they confirmed what the PPP/C had declared a week ago: the PPP had won the popular vote with 61 per cent of votes cast, while APNU trailed far behind with 34 per cent and the AFC collected an insignificant 4 per cent. Because the political parties had contested the LGE separately in their own names, it is not surprising that the vote is seen as a referendum on the performance of the incumbent PNC-led coalition.…
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The No-confidence Motion
“No-confidence” motions are a staple of parliamentary democracies and it arises from the demand that the Executive retain a majority support in the House of Representatives/Assembly or Commons. Since the legitimacy of a democratic government depends on its popular support, the loss of this support – as articulated by the peoples’ representatives – removes that legitimacy. In Britain, there have been 23 motions of no confidence passed since 1945 and 27 in India since their independence of 1947. Guyana was educated to the nuances of this motion in 2014 when…
Read MoreThe history of PNC and media intimidation
Only Guyanese with very short memories or absolutely no knowledge of our post-Independence history would be surprised at the intimidation of journalists at the press conference ostensibly arranged by the APNU (but only PNC officials in attendance) and the AFC at Congress Place last Friday. And this intimidation had to have been planned beforehand, since APNU supporters who thronged the occasion to deliver their insults and heckling had to have been invited and seated by the organisers. They were in full view and earshot of the bevy of the highest…
Read MoreThird Force Politics in a divided polity
This was originally written in 2006. With the imminent absorption of the AFC and WPA into the PNC, it’s clear the more things change, the more they remain the same! “There appears to be some ambiguity in the public sphere about the notion of a “Third Force” at the present conjuncture in Guyanese politics. We offer one perspective to stimulate discussion. Modern Guyanese politics is universally accepted to have begun with the launching of the PPP in 1950. There were, of course, several other parties that contested the 1953 elections,…
Read MoreJonestown: 40 years on
November 18, 2018 will mark 40 years since the infamous Jonestown mass murder-suicide deep in the jungles of Guyana. In that month of 1978, a majority of Guyanese were greeted with the grim news that over 900 American citizens lay dead, children included, after ingesting cyanide-laced Kool-Aid, either voluntary or forcibly. To say it was shocking would be a gross understatement. Many locals were not even aware that the Jonestown-based People’s Temple existed on home soil. As they learnt about it, so did millions across the world, generally beyond the…
Read More‘Unfit and improper’
The 2018 Local Government Elections (LGE) are over. The final results will be thoroughly scrutinised, not just to assess gains or losses, but to look for possible trends using recent past elections as bases. The findings will be integral to the planning of contesting parties for the upcoming 2020 General and Regional Elections. This is the context of strengths and weaknesses and where emphasis may have to be placed among other considerations. In this early post phase, what may find common ground is that the November 12, 2018, LGE was…
Read MoreHow the vote will go
The Disciplined Forces just voted in the LGE. While the turnout was light – as it usually is at LGEs – the pattern will follow historical trends — as will the vote on Nov 12 — and cleave along ethnic lines. The AFC will be wiped out. Those who rail against this tendency foist on the general Guyanese population an awareness of politics and its nuances, and an integration of that knowledge into their political behavior, which investigators have found absent in even the most highly “sophisticated” populations in the…
Read MoreGuyana’s democracy is at stake
The campaigns for the November 12 Local Government Elections (LGE) are winding down with reminders on the forefront. This is part of the efforts in the final push to get voters out and is crucial given that much is at stake as claimed by all involved. Just recently, the mid-term elections in the United States of America were held following what can be described as a very bruising campaign. In many ways it was seen as a general referendum on President Donald Trump either for or against his policies. With…
Read MoreJamal Khashoggi
Five years ago, Nov 2nd was declared as the “UN International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists”, against a background of rising violence – and murder – against journalists across the globe. The lack of any organised activity in Guyana by the media fraternity to commemorate the occasion — even though 78 journalists were killed and thousands imprisoned in 2017, and only last month there was the most brutal and gruesome murder and dismemberment of the Washington Post’s Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Embassy in Turkey — symbolises…
Read MoreGECOM: Institution versus structure
The contretemps over the operations of the electoral institution, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) during the past year illustrate very vividly one of the major challenges posed in political science – the gap between institutions and practices. One of the constants of political life is that well-meaning individuals are always proposing new institutions to “solve” challenges in their polities. For instance, one recurring proposed institution in Guyana that has been proposed under several guised to address the ethnic polarisation is “shared governance”. Before that, there was the call for “inclusive…
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