NO NECESSARY SAFEGUARDS

February 21, 2015 | By KNews | Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source - Kaieteur News

The AFC has ceded the presidential candidate to APNU. In return it has been given a promise that if the combined opposition wins, there will be constitutional change that will see the presidency degutted and authority over Cabinet and ministers handed to the Prime Minister who will be an AFC nominee.

In other words, the AFC is presenting the Cummingsburg Agreement as one in which it has given up the Presidency in return for an empowered Prime Minister.

There is of course a catch. That catch is that the Prime Minister can only be empowered through constitutional change. And for that to happen there has to be a two-thirds majority. Unless the combined opposition wins a two-thirds majority, the devolving of executive authority to the Prime Minister cannot take place. The agreement speaks only of constitutional change to achieve this. Read the fine print.

As such the only way that the promises contained in the Cummingsburg Agreement can materialize is if the combined opposition garners 67% of the total votes cast. Any other lesser percentage leaves the sharing of executive power to the whims of the President.

This fact must be understood because it seems as if the selling point of the agreement is not this caveat about constitutional change but an optimistic formula. That formula is that if the 2011 results are repeated, the combined opposition would win the presidency.

In other words if APNU holds its 40% of the votes; and if the AFC returns its 11% of the total votes cast, then the combined opposition would have 51% of the total votes cast. They would have a majority and therefore be assured of the presidency.

Of course, the combined opposition does not need a majority to secure the presidency. It only needs a plurality.

The hope of repeating 2011 when the parties were single and disengaged is the minimum outcome that the opposition parties seem to be hoping for. The objective is to combine the support of the two parties in 2015 so that the combined opposition wins. But the whole is not necessarily equal to the sum of its parts.

Obviously, the AFC and APNU will hope that the two parties will gain more than a bare majority. After all, APNU is not stagnant. It would want to trump the 44% that the PNC gained in the 1992 elections. 2011 was not so special after all. APNU secured just over 40%.

This was above the 36% gained by the PNCR in the 2006 polls but well short of what the PNC gained in the 1992 elections.

From a statistical point of view, it seems easier to decrease the PPPC support from 49% to 45% than it would be to increase APNU’s tally from 40% to 50% with the AFC on board. But the combined opposition parties believe they have the formula to not just go to 50%. Judging from the agreement signed, they believe that they can gain as far 67% of the total votes cast.

How else does one explain the fact that the Cummingsburg Agreement speaks to constitutional change to allow the AFC nominated Prime Minister to have control over Chairing of the Cabinet and supervision of ministers? Under the Constitution of Guyana sole executive authority is vested, not in the Cabinet, not in the Prime Minister, but in the President. The President can delegate responsibilities but he or she remains the sole custodian of executive authority.

The supporters of the AFC are being wooed into believing that should the combined opposition win the presidency, then AFC will be running the country because there is an agreement that would allow for the Prime Minister to do so. That is a smokescreen. It is intended to cloud the shape of what is a lop-sided agreement that makes meaningless concessions to the AFC.

It makes it look as if the AFC wrested major concessions from APNU when in fact this whole proposed coalition is an APNU dominated creature.

The AFC must therefore, stop this insult to the intelligence of its supporters by parading this agreement as one in which the AFC has wrested major concessions from APNU. That is not so at all. The agreement speaks about constitutional change to allow for the Prime Minister to control Cabinet and ministers.

For that part of the agreement to be activated there has to be constitutional change and this requires the opposition winning would have to win more than 67% of the votes.

But even if the combined opposition wins 67% of the votes, what is to stop the government from not going ahead with the changes that would put power in the hands of the Prime Minister?

The AFC wants us to believe that if there is a reneging of this agreement, then the AFC can pull the plug on its own government by doing what it had planned to do to the PPP: pass a no –confidence motion.

Donald Ramotar negated that by proroguing parliament. What is to stop the government formed by APNU from doing the same and leaving the AFC out in the cold?

The AFC has signed an agreement without the necessary safeguards.