caribny posted:Stormborn posted:We are more like most commonwealth type, unicameral and majoritarian. We do not have a queen who is merely ceremonial. Like all Westminster models the prime minister is supreme.Except that most commonwealth nations are not unicameral. You have heard of the House of Lords. Most of the English Caribbean also has a senate. To my knowledge only Guyana is unicameral.
And the problem that the CCJ had is that they don't even begin to understand the dysfunction of Guyanese politics which is why they refused to be involved in setting a date. That constitution is likely a crude cut and paste mess where different sections contradict and begin overly subject to interpretation. And then it must be put into the context of the miasma which is our political environment based on two warring tribes.
If Jagdeo wanted to be useful rather than an NCV he should have insisted that the Coalition focused on its promise of constitutional reform. Had the NCV come from a refusal of the Coalition to engage in facilitating a broad based and transparent process of constitutional reform then an NCV would have been merited.
The ONLY reason for the NCV is the race to be in power when "first oil" comes. Hence the monstrosity of an incompetent man, Irfaan Alli, who even most PPP supporters don't consider suitable. Jagdeo installed him so that he could run a proxy government and not be seen as having a conflict of interest as he plotted to stick his fingers into that oil soup.
The house of lords is like a chair emeritus for old fogies with little power. Brits were and still are a monarchy. Do we complain that a king/queen is necessary? It is the structure. Majoritarian, single constituency, no separation between the legislature and the PM/ President and the PM/President can do almost anything with little over constraint. This does not happen in britain because they have other "traditions" that constrains excesses.
We have no moral under-girding philosophy ( ie natural rights etc) no scholarship, no extensive commentary ( except of late) and no founding fathers to whom we can refer. All we have is a completely cobbled together document mirroring the government structures if the commonwealth. It is not Federal, non territorial federal, not decentralized in any way.
With it decoupling from a privy council and mirroring the same in the CCJ we gave everything in structure and tone that is identifiable in the commonwealth states. It would have worked had we not been ethnically bifurcated with the ethnic demographics so closely matched. As it is the state is an ethnic prize as has been commented on by scholars studying this kind of system and ought to have been addressed a long time ago
I am not going to comment on the NCV since both sides did the same ( PNC attempted it) and with the same consequence..truncated tenure of the government in office.