CAN POWER SHARING WORK IN GUYANA?
TEIXEIRA EXPOUNDS ON ‘POWER SHARING’
- to illustrate advances in Guyana’s Constitution
PRESIDENTIAL Adviser on Governance Gail Teixeira said the Constitution of Guyana allows for a measure of power sharing in that the Leader of the Opposition has veto power on the President in relation to certain selected or identified critical constitutional posts. She gave as an example of this, the appointment of the Chancellor of the Judiciary and the Chief Justice.
According to her, if the President and the Leader of the Opposition cannot agree on a name, then the person (nominee) cannot be appointed to either of the posts.
“These two gentlemen cannot agree on a name the person cannot be appointed, and so therefore that is why you have the Chief Justice acting as Chancellor and the Chief Justice also in an acting position,” she said.
Currently, Chief Justice Carl Singh is Acting Chancellor of the Judiciary, while Mr. Ian Chang is Acting Chief Justice.
Teixeira said the acting appointments are necessary because the Judiciary cannot exist without these two important functionaries being in place.
“The Constitution could have done what other Constitutions have done in other parts of the world, where, while they do allow for this consultation, if there is disagreement the President or Head of State could still go ahead and appoint. We did not put that. Therefore, by doing so, we allow the Leader of the Opposition to have a veto power on a number of critical appoints,” Teixeira said.
The Presidential Adviser on Governance said the debate on power sharing has been a wide one since 1992. “I don’t think that there is unanimity even amongst the Opposition as to what power sharing means,” she said.
According to her, there is “no clear formula” as to what is meant by power sharing. “…it has a more profound meaning than just the dividing up of electoral seats at the end of an election,” she posited, while adding that it has greater meaning in terms of the day to day decision making about running the country.
“The kind of power sharing formula we look at is less about numbers and more about systems and mechanisms,” she posited. She added that, as in the consultations for the Low Carbon Development Strategy, it involves people.
But she said that power sharing could lead to a slowing down in the day to day running of the country because “you’ve go to get people’s opinions.”
Teixeira also cited the consultations for the National Competitiveness Strategy and the National Development Strategy as occasions where there was wide consultation with stakeholders before going forward.
“Power sharing is not only about Government and Opposition saying ‘here we go,’ and ‘this is how we are gonna do it,’ but clearly in the Constitution and the general political line of the Government is to find where there can be opportunities for engagement, whether it is the National Stakeholders’ Forum, whether it is in Parliament, whether it is on discussions on programmes and policies, to try to engage in nation building,” she said.
She said, too, that while people may not always agree on the way forward, at the end of the day Governments must govern. “They have got to get the job done of running the country. The political framework has to allow, at the end of the day, a democratically elected Government to do what it has to do, ultimately.”
Asked if there will be any changes made to the Constitution to allow for speedier resolutions to deadlock situations, Teixeira said: “We like our Constitution, we are proud as a party (PPP) and the Government of the tremendous efforts that were made. We will learn as we go along. It is a process. We are going to have to find our own answers to issues and, as usual, you will have 60 percent agreeing, 30 percent not agreeing and the rest of them on the fence,” she said.
“At the end of it, has the process allowed for an engagement or has it been a bulldozing through of things?” she asked. “We can say that the engagement with civil society, with communities, with the people, the parliamentary parties, with labour, business and religions organizations, we can say we have tried to ensure that they are not locked out, that they are invited to participate. Some have used the opportunity more aggressively than others,” she said.
Turning to economic and social issues, Teixeira alluded to the pro-poor, pro-growth approach of Government in looking at the poor and vulnerable in the society – women, children, the elderly, and disabled and Amerindians. She said that in terms of the changes made, “we can say that poverty has declined.”
She said 67 percent of the people in the country were living below the poverty line in 1992. “We are down according to 2008 figures to about 35 percent, and within that, 18 percent in severe or extreme poverty.” She also pointed out that, according to a World Bank study, Guyana has “pockets of poverty” rather than large numbers in communities being poor.
Teixeira highlighted many successes in education as she spoke of Guyana’s achieving of many of the Millennium Development Goals, but simultaneously acknowledged that there are still some challenges that remain.
She said that the 2012 to 2015 period is going to look at challenges remaining in the health sector. “We still have to struggle with infant and maternal mortality. We are still struggling to improve those figures. We still have the issue of gender equity under the MDGs. Not enough women are engaged in the labour force or in the economic activity. We have a lower figure of women’s participation in the economy than say Jamaica for example,” she said.
She said that the work women do oftentimes goes unrecorded as they try to supplement their family’s income. “How do we ensure that women are [recognized] in the economy?” she asked. She said that women are many in the public service and in professional areas, but lacking in the entrepreneurial areas. “Even in the private sector there are very few women at the top,” Teixeira said.
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TEIXEIRA EXPOUNDS ON ‘POWER SHARING’
- to illustrate advances in Guyana’s ConstitutionPRESIDENTIAL Adviser on Governance Gail Teixeira said the Constitution of Guyana allows for a measure of power sharing in that the Leader of the Opposition has veto power on the President in relation to certain selected or identified critical constitutional posts. She gave as an example of this, the appointment of the Chancellor of the Judiciary and the Chief Justice.
According to her, if the President and the Leader of the Opposition cannot agree on a name, then the person (nominee) cannot be appointed to either of the posts.
“These two gentlemen cannot agree on a name the person cannot be appointed, and so therefore that is why you have the Chief Justice acting as Chancellor and the Chief Justice also in an acting position,” she said.
Currently, Chief Justice Carl Singh is Acting Chancellor of the Judiciary, while Mr. Ian Chang is Acting Chief Justice.
Teixeira said the acting appointments are necessary because the Judiciary cannot exist without these two important functionaries being in place.
“The Constitution could have done what other Constitutions have done in other parts of the world, where, while they do allow for this consultation, if there is disagreement the President or Head of State could still go ahead and appoint. We did not put that. Therefore, by doing so, we allow the Leader of the Opposition to have a veto power on a number of critical appoints,” Teixeira said.
The Presidential Adviser on Governance said the debate on power sharing has been a wide one since 1992. “I don’t think that there is unanimity even amongst the Opposition as to what power sharing means,” she said.
According to her, there is “no clear formula” as to what is meant by power sharing. “…it has a more profound meaning than just the dividing up of electoral seats at the end of an election,” she posited, while adding that it has greater meaning in terms of the day to day decision making about running the country.
“The kind of power sharing formula we look at is less about numbers and more about systems and mechanisms,” she posited. She added that, as in the consultations for the Low Carbon Development Strategy, it involves people.
But she said that power sharing could lead to a slowing down in the day to day running of the country because “you’ve go to get people’s opinions.”
Teixeira also cited the consultations for the National Competitiveness Strategy and the National Development Strategy as occasions where there was wide consultation with stakeholders before going forward.
“Power sharing is not only about Government and Opposition saying ‘here we go,’ and ‘this is how we are gonna do it,’ but clearly in the Constitution and the general political line of the Government is to find where there can be opportunities for engagement, whether it is the National Stakeholders’ Forum, whether it is in Parliament, whether it is on discussions on programmes and policies, to try to engage in nation building,” she said.
She said, too, that while people may not always agree on the way forward, at the end of the day Governments must govern. “They have got to get the job done of running the country. The political framework has to allow, at the end of the day, a democratically elected Government to do what it has to do, ultimately.”
Asked if there will be any changes made to the Constitution to allow for speedier resolutions to deadlock situations, Teixeira said: “We like our Constitution, we are proud as a party (PPP) and the Government of the tremendous efforts that were made. We will learn as we go along. It is a process. We are going to have to find our own answers to issues and, as usual, you will have 60 percent agreeing, 30 percent not agreeing and the rest of them on the fence,” she said.
“At the end of it, has the process allowed for an engagement or has it been a bulldozing through of things?” she asked. “We can say that the engagement with civil society, with communities, with the people, the parliamentary parties, with labour, business and religions organizations, we can say we have tried to ensure that they are not locked out, that they are invited to participate. Some have used the opportunity more aggressively than others,” she said.
Turning to economic and social issues, Teixeira alluded to the pro-poor, pro-growth approach of Government in looking at the poor and vulnerable in the society – women, children, the elderly, and disabled and Amerindians. She said that in terms of the changes made, “we can say that poverty has declined.”
She said 67 percent of the people in the country were living below the poverty line in 1992. “We are down according to 2008 figures to about 35 percent, and within that, 18 percent in severe or extreme poverty.” She also pointed out that, according to a World Bank study, Guyana has “pockets of poverty” rather than large numbers in communities being poor.
Teixeira highlighted many successes in education as she spoke of Guyana’s achieving of many of the Millennium Development Goals, but simultaneously acknowledged that there are still some challenges that remain.
She said that the 2012 to 2015 period is going to look at challenges remaining in the health sector. “We still have to struggle with infant and maternal mortality. We are still struggling to improve those figures. We still have the issue of gender equity under the MDGs. Not enough women are engaged in the labour force or in the economic activity. We have a lower figure of women’s participation in the economy than say Jamaica for example,” she said.
She said that the work women do oftentimes goes unrecorded as they try to supplement their family’s income. “How do we ensure that women are [recognized] in the economy?” she asked. She said that women are many in the public service and in professional areas, but lacking in the entrepreneurial areas. “Even in the private sector there are very few women at the top,” Teixeira said.
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