THE POSSIBILITY OF UNSCHEDULED ELECTIONS IN GUYANA
If the No-Confidence motion being initiated by the Opposition Alliance For Change succeeds in Guyana’s Parliament, those who know Guyana’s Constitution, must tell me that the current P.P.P./C Government will have to leave office, and call General Elections within 90 days. It is necessary to explain that only a MOTION could he tabled, and after it is debated and voted upon, the result becomes a RESOLUTION…I give that advice, because I often hear some colleagues talking about submitting a resolution. A motion should be submitted in WRITING, because the wording ought to be exact and correct. Thirdly, amendments to a motion have to be debated and voted upon first, because the results of the amendments have to be added to, or subtracted from the contents of the main motion.
APNU’s SUPPORT I get the impression that a large majority of Guyanese living inside and outside of Guyana are so anxious to witness Governmental-change in the Dear Land that they are enthusiastic about having the A.F.C.—inspired motion adopted. We all are aware about how broad and long the intellects of Guyanese could stretch. Those intellects could at times out-do and out-manoeuver elastic and rubber-bands; and therein lies the problems, because I am hearing about a series of conditionalities which persons are saying that APNU should demand, before lending any support to the AFC’s initiative. Maybe it would help significantly, if the two Opposition Political Parties in Guyana would educate the masses in general, and their own members in particular, about the contents of the No-Confidence motion and the prescriptive consequences of its passage in Guyana’s National Assembly.
ELECTIONS’ PREPARATION Sad to say, participation and involvement in Elections nowadays, are to a large extent being determined by the financial and material resources that competing Political Parties have at their disposal. Some informants have told me that the P.P.P./C and the AFC because of their principal racial make-up are already amassing huge sums of money for the perceived political combat. I gather that several post-mortems were done after the last (2011) General Elections that were conducted in Guyana, so I am presuming, (not Assuming) that the Opposition Political Parties’ Leaders and operatives are acquainted with what they need to, and have to do. At one point, I had grown attracted to rumours that at any future General-Elections, APNU and the AFC would have been contesting as a joint BLOC, but now I am hearing that that possibility may not be a workable probability, because there are fundamental differences over issues like which Political Entity should get the Presidential Candidate. There is still HOPE, especially in light of Mr. Granger’s thoughts and thrust around a “ONE-GUYANA platform….” In fact, I have been telling some people who know Mr.Granger well, that this is the ideal time for him to be evangelizing about the ONE-GUYANA platform. Let me reiterate that the holding of periodic General-Elections is only one tissue of democratic-displays; first of all, those Elections have to appear to have been conducted in a free and fair manner. A Government’s respect for democratic practices can be easily gauged by the complaints and grievances that are aired within a society itself, or that are referred to the Courts, and Regional and/or International Organizations for intervention(s) and resolution.
(Carlyle Harry)