Power-sharing (executive): why it’s not good for Guyana

In the fiery storm that is the British Parliament, the respected Member of Parliament George Galloway said, “If there were a democracy in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah would be the president, because he would get the most votes. But of course he cannot be the president, because you have to be a Christian to be the president, and you have to be a Sunni to be the prime minister, and you have to be a Shi'ite to be the speaker”.

Above MP Galloway went as far as to denounce power-sharing as undemocratic. Like the respected MP, those of us who understand the political world understand the difference between power-sharing and democracy. Power-sharing is the road towards democracy, if a country is torn by civil war for example the horn of Africa and Northern Ireland. It can also be vital towards a transition to democracy like the case of South Africa. Power-sharing expert Arend Lijphart acknowledges this.

We are often fooled by beautiful words like power-sharing, which should be more truly termed power-stealing because it is stealing from the people, stealing the right of the people to choose a government based on a political platform, it is also stealing accountability in the executive branch. The political oppositions have to a lot to gain from power-stealing, but ultimately their supporters have everything to loose.

Guyana is a full fledge democracy and have nothing to gain from power-sharing, to us it would be a step backwards. We have no militia to appease; we have no group of elite that seek to destabilize democracy, we do have a group that seek destabilize our democracy but they are far from the elite, however I should point out they also choose a patriotic misguided name by calling themselves “Freedom fighters”. We have free and fair elections where a majority of the voting population gets to choose the party they feel have the best platform to lead Guyana over the next five years.

An election in Guyana is a bid by the political parties to serve the people of Guyana. Every party put forward their proposal and the people choose the best proposal, that winning party then get to choose those who feel can carry out the platform chosen by the people.

In layman’s language, imagine you want to build a house and you choose the best contracting firm to do the job (Democracy), but you are being forced to also hire part of the high priced competitors and the other firm that have a track record for shabby workmanship (Power-stealing).

Many supporters of power-stealing do so along racial and ethnic terms and points towards marginalization while they advocate disenfranchisement. I wonder which member of the PNC would like to explain to their supporters that in their power-sharing plan they would endorse the no-basis case for race and in turn guarantee Guyana to be ruled by the ethnic majority. Now political scientists might argue that this is the reality in Guyana, but that is just thinking short term, what would happen when the next Walter Rodney comes around? Oh that’s right the PNC have no care for the Walter Rodney types!!!

Asif Mohamed