Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has contended that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration believes in shared governance but noted that if the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Opposition is serious about working with Government then it needs to adhere to the basic democratic principles.
A recent United States Agency for International Development (USAID) report on democracy, human rights, and governance in Guyana that was released last month stated, among other things, that the major political parties in the country need to devise a way to form a functioning democracy based on power-sharing rather than a “winner takes all” mentality.
But during a recent interview with a social media commentator, VP Jagdeo posited that this is nothing that the PPP/C Government has not already committed to.
“The USAID report is not saying anything that we have not said publicly about inclusive governance. We in the People’s Progressive Party have been talking about this. We’ve lived this, we’ve passed a Constitution that promote inclusive governance through its features.
“When the Parliament was structured differently at the level of the legislature, we changed that,” he stated.
According to Jagdeo, who is a former President under a previous PPP/C regime, the party has introduced the five Rights Commissions which require a two-thirds majority support from the National Assembly to select their members; establish the Procurement Commission that stipulates agreement between Government and the Opposition on its membership, and even include in the Constitution, four Standing Committees in the Parliament, two of which are chaired by Government and the other two by the Opposition.
“This was not there before that includes the Opposition, at least at the legislative level, to have a say in the management of the country,” the Vice President noted.
Also at that level, Jagdeo added that under his presidency he signed into law the establishment of the Parliamentary Management Committee that consists of five Government and Opposition members each and is chaired by the House Speaker.
“I can go through a list of other measures that we put in the Constitution to promote inclusive Government at that [parliamentary] level to give greater voice to the Opposition,” the VP asserted.
Moreover, Jagdeo outlined that even the PPP/C 2020 Election Manifesto reflects its intention to undertake constitutional reform, especially as it relates to the governance model. He added that if the public wants to see more power-sharing then his Government is ready to discuss a model for greater inclusive governance.
“I’m sure if you read our Manifesto, they were just repeating what we had in our manifesto, that is, constitutional reform to look at our governance model and also to look at management of our electoral systems. Those are the two major things that we promised but more so, on the governance model. So, I don’t see anything strange.”
“The US Government is not offending us or directing us to do something that we [haven’t] already called for… We are committed to a free and inclusive country, and so we have no problem with that call,” he asserted.
In the same breath, however, VP Jagdeo stressed that there must be some changes before the PPP/C Government can work with the coalition Opposition.
“We made it clear… if APNU wants to engage seriously they have to move away from racism and they have to commit to democracy because that party has a major problem with democracy… They are still not committed, I believe, to a democratic country [but] they would speak the rhetoric of democracy… In talking about inclusivity and inclusive governance, you can’t include in Government people who are not committed to a national movement for all our people, which we are committed to and all our policies reflect that,” the Vice President pointed out.
Only Wednesday, Guyana observed the two-year anniversary of the historic March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections which was followed by a five-month political impasse after blatant attempts were made to rig the polls so that the APNU/AFC regime could remain in power.
It was only after intense pushback from local stakeholders as well as the regional and international community that democracy prevailed and the PPP/C was sworn into office in August 2020.
A national recount of the votes showed that the now Government had obtained 233,336 votes, while the APNU/AFC secured 217,920 votes.
