POWER SHARING

POWER Sharing or Shared Governance as a solution to Guyana’s ethno-political problems has been part of the country’s political discourse since the 1961 Eusi Kwayana (Sydney King) Joint Premiership proposal.Since then, political parties have made declarations and proposals about the need for power sharing.

After the recent election, the Coalition sent out some – what can be described as ‘feelers’ – to the PPP on the issue, but the latter has shown scant interest.

Many may even question whether the Coalition was really serious. The big question is why, despite their commitment to Power Sharing, there has not been a real Government of National Unity these 54 years.

The major problem is the tendency of the parties to embrace power sharing while in Opposition, but to reject it when in power. Both major parties have also shown a preference to reach for power sharing when they sense that power is slipping away. This tendency was evident in the actions of the PPP in 1962 and the PNC in 1985 and 1990.

During its recent tenure in office, the PPP showed a preference for engaging the Opposition in “dialogues”, which was that party’s preferred definition of Power Sharing. During the recent election campaign, the APNU+AFC coalition promised that should it win the election, it would move to set up a Government of National Unity. Will they deliver? If they do, it would improve the quality of our democracy.

One benefit of power-sharing is its potential for the enhancement of democratisation within the Government. One of the problems of governance in the Caribbean, despite its general adherence to the tenets of formal democracy, is the concomitant monopoly of power by the ruling party and the exclusion of the Opposition. This democratic exclusion has led to a virtual one-party democracy, which has had negative consequences for the rule of law, respect for civil liberties, government accountability, economic management and development, political instability and national sovereignty.

In ethnically polarised societies, democratic exclusion and one-party democracy often mean ethnic exclusion and domination. The ruling party’s obsession with remaining in power to protect the “race” leads to it being unaccountable to either its constituency or that of the opposing parties.

Further, the guaranteed ethnic support, regardless of the quality of governance, makes the Government more likely to overreach. On the other hand, Opposition perception and reality of marginalisation drives it to extra-parliamentary tactics, which are then crushed by the Government in the name of Law and Order.

A second benefit of power sharing is that it brings the Opposition off the streets into the formal councils of Government thus denying the Government the excuse that it is under siege and the Opposition of charges that its supporters are ethnically marginalised. With both groups in the Executive branch, majoritarianism gives way to a more consensus form of democracy. But increased democracy within the Executive branch will not enhance democracy if it is not supplemented by democratisation of other branches and between the Central Government and Local Government. While power sharing in the Executive does not automatically lead to democratisation of the other two branches, it stands a better chance of facilitating this. Increased separation of powers between the Executive and Legislative branches would lead to more checks and balances than currently exists.