I can agree with only one of the two points made in a letter by my UG Law Department colleague and friend Professor Justice Duke Pollard, appearing in the Stabroek News of January 3, 2019. The one on which we agree is the abuse of the constitutional provision for qualification for membership of the National Assembly, while on what the Professor describes as calls for the Government to resign following its defeat in a No Confidence Motion in the National Assembly, I must disagree. Let us deal with the second matter first.
Professor Pollard suggests “condign sanctions” against what he describes as “public mischief to require at this stage the resignation of the Government …” With respect, the Professor seems to misrepresent the distinction between the observance by the Granger Administration of the Constitution in relation to the resignation of the “Cabinet, including the President” under Article 106 (6), and that of the Government under Article 106 (7) which takes place after a new President has been sworn in following elections within three months of the passage of the No Confidence Motion.
With his sharp intellect and judicial mind, the Professor would have noticed that the 106(7) resignation of the Government takes place in the future but that no such latitude applies to the resignation of the Cabinet, including the President. The ineluctable conclusion is that under Article 106 (6), Cabinet’s resignation is an immediate consequence of the vote announced by the Speaker. Indeed, instead of calling for condign sanctions against what he himself describes only as allegations, it would have been helpful for the Professor to have lent his undoubted weight to expressing an opinion on what happens in “well-functioning democracies” when a Government loses a vote on a motion of no confidence.
On the first issue, i.e. the “qualification for election as members” of the National Assembly, Professor Pollard is livid that the political parties now seem to have woken up to this issue which formed part of the original 1980 Constitution which to this day remains unamended.
For more than twenty years, I have been drawing attention to the open violation of Article 155 of the Guyana which forbids any person who holds dual citizenship from seeking election to the National Assembly. In media articles, letters and comments, I cited relevant cases from across the Caribbean and the wider Commonwealth and drew to the fact that potential Guyanese MP’s take an oath that they are not in violation of this constitutional proscription. I complained in writing to past Chairmen of GECOM, only to be told that the Commissioners – including those from the parties now in Government – were unwilling to enforce the provision.
In this regard, the conduct of the Alliance For Change (AFC) really does stand out. Following the No Confidence Motion, the Party’s leading representatives in the Government are daily in the media arguing that Charrandass Persaud’s vote in support of the No Confidence Motion against the Government cannot be counted because he holds a Canadian passport.
The AFC is well aware that among senior members of this Government elected in the May 2015 elections are holders of US, British and Canadian passports and accordingly, its support of any challenge to Persaud’s vote on this ground exposes the double standards of the Party and those of its Coalition partners. Indeed, its own conduct rises to the level of shameless hypocrisy when a review of its 2011 Elections Manifesto committed to having “Diasporal representation in the National Assembly”. To show that it meant it then, but apparently not now, the AFC included in its list of candidates for the 2011 elections, the following holders of foreign passports: Malcolm Cho-Kee (Canadian) and Drs. Rohan Somar, Tarron Khemraj, Shameer Ally and Salaudeen Nausrudeen, all Americans.
Sadly for those Guyanese who liked the idea of a Third Force/Party, the AFC appears to have changed beyond recognition since 2015, abandoning principle in favour of positions, privileges, pay, perks and pork. It is ironic that the Party that introduced the No Confidence Motion in 2014 that led to the prorogation of the Tenth Parliament, is now complaining that the Constitution should not allow for “governments to be easily ousted.” It takes no guessing that the leader of the AFC making the statement is Mr. Moses Nagamootoo, Prime Minister, whose only substantive function for three and one half years has been Constitutional Reform. And to complete the vicious circle, it was another top AFC man, former Chairman Mr. Nigel Hughes who was appointed to lead the Constitution Reform Steering Committee.
The epitaph of the AFC will probably read, in bold letters: “To have no equal for duplicity, hypocrisy and self-interest whether past, present or future”.