Last Saturday, Guyana celebrated its 46th anniversary of independence with Guyanese across the political divide aware of the lingering possibility of a snap general election being called by President Donald Ramotar.
Neither the president nor his ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPPC) alluded to such a political development over the weekend at official and political events.
But speculations of a snap poll are being fuelled by ongoing wranglings, at times quite bitter, between the government and the alliance of opposition parties – A Partnership For National Unity (APNU), 26 seats, and Alliance For Change (AFC), seven seats – which secured a one-seat majority over the PPP’s 32 in the 65-member National Assembly in the November 28 general election.
Ever since its return to state power at the first free and fair elections in October 1992, the PPP has been accustomed to securing outright parliamentary victories. However, while it again retained the presidency and emerged with the single largest bloc of votes, the new configuration in parliament presents an entirely new political challenge for multiparty governance politics.
Conscious of the need for stability and orderly development in Guyana to continue along the path of an enviable economic growth of five per cent over the past four years, both head of state Ramotar and the main opposition party that dominates the APNU alliance – the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) – chose to separately make encouraging statements for constructive dialogue and compromise.
And, of course, the independence anniversary provided an appropriate occasion. Nevertheless, however grudgingly or expediently expressed, the country’s vital and expanding private sector, the labour movement and civil society in general would undoubtedly prefer such sentiments.
Yet, talk, and political talk in particular, may be easy. Walking the walk is an entirely different ball game. Therefore, the Guyanese electorate waits to hear how the PPPC-led government and the PNCR will move to blend expressed sentiments for dialogue and compromise with specific initiatives in the coming weeks and months.
Next week’s two-day meeting of the 65-member National Assembly, scheduled to begin on Thursday, could well prove a significant occasion to assess how to square “good talk” with “good walk”.
It would be the parliamentary sitting at which the government is expected to submit a supplementary budget with provisions of about GUY$27 million (BDS$265 000) in expenditures affected by the combined APNU/AFC budget cuts of GUY$21 billion (BDS$206 million) in the national budget as originally presented by Finance Minister Ashni Singh.
Both the Guyana government and opposition should reach out for a compromise and participate in good faith in tripartite discussions, instead of seeking to score political points based on narrow and opportunistic agendas.
• Rickey Singh is a noted Caribbean journalist.
