Granger’s constitutional reform threat: legalise dictatorship

Everybody is talking about constitutional reforms as one of the most critical issues in the upcoming March 2020 elections. David Granger made another empty promise that constitutional reform will be one of the top priorities for APNU/AFC. He made that same promise in 2015 and in five years, not a single reform in the Constitution has been accomplished.
His record shows no commitment for constitutional reforms, so what did he mean when he said constitutional reform is one of his priorities. We have to be concerned because we know what he meant – he wants to remove the article in the Constitution that caters for a No-Confidence Motion. He wants to appoint persons for GECOM’s Chair, the Chancellor, and the Chief Justice etc in his own deliberate judgement. What he wants, is a Constitution creating a legal dictatorship.
One of his chief priorities for constitutional reform is removing the right of people to recall their government through a No-Confidence Motion. In every country, people have a right to recall their government. In most countries, the government is recalled through a No-Confidence Motion. In America, the government can be recalled through an impeachment. David Granger wants to ensure that the Guyanese people cannot recall their government. On March 2, 2020, Guyanese must stand firm and reject Granger’s intention to legalise his dictatorship; the people must ensure his term comes to an end.
Granger’s promise for constitutional reform is just another empty promise, a camouflage for removing rights from the Constitution, not to expand rights for the people, not reforms to improve accountability of government. David Granger has been in charge of constitutional reform for the past nine years since December 2011 and not once has he tried to expand rights. After the December 2011 elections, APNU and AFC took control of the Parliamentary Constitutional Committee. They had six members to the PPP four. Granger himself was a member and with the support of his colleagues from APNU and AFC, he was elected the Chair. I served on that committee together with Gail Teixeira, Anil Nandlall and Bibi Shaddick. This committee was established in the reformed Constitution of 2000/2001 and tasked with continuous review and reforms of the Constitution.
Between 2011 and 2015, Granger only convened the constitutional committee two times after the first meeting elected him as the Chair. The second meeting was supposed to develop a work plan. At that meeting, it was decided that we consider the extensive recommendations listed by the Constitutional Commissions which consulted broadly between 1993 and 1999. The report from the work of those commissions contained almost 200 recommendations for a comprehensive reform of the Burnham 1980 Constitution. The commissions that consulted across Guyana were chaired, first, by Bernard De Santos, the then-Attorney General (1992-1997) and, second, by Ralph Ramkarran. Most of the recommendations were adopted and included in extensive constitutional amendment laws in 2000/2001 and some between 2001 and 2011.
I was tasked with preparing a list of all the recommendations that were already incorporated into the amended Constitution and to prepare a list of the outstanding recommendations that had to be concluded. I did so and submitted that paper early in 2012. Granger did not convene a third meeting of the committee until 2013, only after several inquiries about the paper I submitted. This third meeting was nothing but a sham. After having the paper in their hands for almost a year, we were told that the members will need time to study the paper I submitted. The constitutional committee never met again. In the four years that he directly had responsibility for constitutional reform and having the majority in Parliament, he did nothing.
In May 2015, he became President, with even greater power to effect constitutional reform. Basil Williams was appointed Chair of the Parliamentary Constitutional Committee. In these five years, the committee met three times: once to elect the Chair and two times where the meetings lasted a few minutes, without any meaningful deliberations. Granger himself castrated Basil Williams when he decided to side-step the legal parliamentary body with responsibility to drive reforms, handing over Cabinet responsibility for constitutional reforms to Nagamootoo, who was the rubberstamp Prime Minister. Nagamootoo has spent more than $100M. There were no consultations anywhere. He appointed a task force headed by Nigel Hughes. That task force presented him with a report which is sitting somewhere gathering dust. Nagamootoo did what Granger intended – sabotage constitutional reforms.
This is the commitment APNU/AFC and, particularly, David Granger has shown to constitutional reform – zilch. Thus, when he boldly announced at the launching of the PNC/APNU/AFC campaign last week that one of the major priorities is constitutional reforms, it is clearly a bogus promise. But he did dog-whistle his intention to remove the No-Confidence Motion and to expand the powers of the President. On March 2, we must say YES, YES, YES to constitutional reform, but NO, NO, NO to legalising a dictatorship. We can only do so by ensuring the removal of Granger as President and APNU/AFC as government.