‘Winner takes all’ will keep Guyana on path of instability – Ramkarran

“Unless winner take all is abandoned now, Guyana will continue on a path of political instability and ethnic dissatisfaction.”
This is according to political stalwart Tacuma Ogunseye; a view that was supported by former Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran, who this past week in his latest writings continued the discussion on the need for constitutional reform that would facilitate shared governance.

Former Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran

According to Ramkarran, the matter was discussed this past week between himself, Ogunseye and former Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) Government Minister, Dr Henry Jeffrey. “We had all agreed in principle in our writings that Guyana needs a constitutional system that would facilitate the two major political parties sharing the executive in coalition government as a permanent feature of our political life,” according to Ramkarran.

He observed however that such a situation would pose a problem in that the greatest danger in such a constitutional scheme would be the absence of an effective opposition.
According to Ramkarran, “Ogunseye said, and we agreed, that between the jeopardies of shared governance with a weak opposition, and the negative consequences that would continue to ensue with a minority government or a winner take all system, he would prefer to take the risk of shared governance with a weak opposition now, and continue to work towards a system that would enhance oversight over such a government.”

It was noted during the discussion that neither of the major political parties had in recent times, if ever, demonstrated an interest in transformative constitutional reform to end the winner take all system.
Ramkarran drew reference to the fact that up to 1991, Cheddi Jagan supported such a system but after the general elections of 1992, the PPP completely changed course and grew comfortable with the Burnham constitutional construct.

“In 2011 this appeared initially to pay handsome dividends by enabling the PPP to hold on to office in a minority administration with only a plurality of the vote…But it has turned out, perhaps contrary to its expectations, it was in office without power, a situation that it complained about repeatedly during the colonial era between 1957 and 1964 when it was in office,” said Ramkarran.

Tacuma Ogunseye

He referred also to the fact that the Late President, Desmond Hoyte, had announced support for ‘shared governance’ in 2003 but since then, the Peoples National Congress Reform (PNCR) has done absolutely nothing to campaign for this realization.

According to Ramkarran, the panel agreed that constitutional reform will not come about unless there is a mass campaign by civil society to persuade the political parties that the time has come for a further review of the constitution in the direction of abolishing the ‘winner take all’ system.
The former Speaker of the House and former longstanding member of the PPP posited that merely writing about constitutional reform as a means to create national unity, as well as about the need for national unity itself, as many people have been doing recently, appears to have tapped a stream of consciousness in the public.

He surmised that this could be the only reason for the unity dance which has been going on in the past few weeks between the political parties.
The PNCR has proposed national unity by way, presumably, of a coalition government and the PPP has announced its own ‘national democratic front.’
None of the parties has spelt out how they plan to proceed with their public pronouncements nor have they been explicit in their architecture.
According to Ramkarran, it has been a great disappointment to many that the combined Opposition did not have on its agenda the subject of constitutional reform as the principal issue after the indecisive results of the 2011 elections.

He suggested that a constitution that allows a minority government to remain in office indefinitely is not the greatest constitution in the world, as proclaimed by the PPP.
“It is seriously flawed…It remained so after the reform process of 1999 to 2000 because of the failure of the main political parties to confront the presidential system and its absence of checks and balances.”

PPP Founder, Cheddi Jagan

According to Ramkarran, by failing to focus on constitutional reform since 2011, the Opposition may have lost a golden opportunity to have the upcoming elections as a clear referendum on the issue.
“To believe that it could have influenced governance and decision making from the opposition benches was a grievous error…Hopefully, it will use the opportunity of the election campaign to attempt to correct its mistake and confront the issue for the Guyanese people as the most, or one of the most urgent and important facing the nation at this time.”