That the Constitution Reform Commission submitted a permanent structure for GECOM members points to the mindset of those who commissioned its implementation.
The reform was envisioned for the existence of the two primary Parties – PNC and PPP- with no contemplation of viable additions to Party choices, clearly.
And if there was, there would have been some consideration of the norms of Politics and its first cousin Civics, as well as their roles as drivers in a perpetually evolving society that is constantly seeking more and better.
As they say in politics, winning is the first step. Everything else is to make that victory ‘stay won’.
With the rule-changing Party, PPP, having battle-tested the PNC as its only contender for some 4 decades, this
rule change was no mere shift, but a power play. It may as well have been a science lab because there was ample opportunity for the typical game- theory analysis that follows these political fault lines, preceding deep changes.
And we’re thinking it was. Having a direct impact on the Elections Commission, the entity that declares a Party’s victory, to us, it couldn’t be anything less.
When a government decides to make rules permanent, disregarding the dynamics of people and ever changing preferences, it is hardly for the Peoples’ benefit. It is always for the extension of its tentacles into the control mechanism of governance.
Humans are biologically wired for optimization. So we have to look at the Party- PPP -that authorized the reform and envision what benefits it foresaw in having permanent members.
For starters, permanence prevents any future reversal of their rule and makes efforts at legislation to do so difficult, especially if it is the Party that has staffed the courts.
It’s also a branding tool. With permanent legislation in its name, it creates changes that sells its ideology.
And when the Party defies its own rule, like when it rotates its ‘permanent team’ by replacing it with another, playing both ends against the middle, it’s also for its sole benefit.
Once outside of the lab environment, the real- time tests determine if a change in the initial analysis is needed. A closer examination of the political fault lines becomes essential…to determine how the complexities and interconnections and potential ruptures could be of benefit.
They may be need to look more ‘People than Party’ oriented. Disgruntled officers and members may need to feel more appreciated. Big donors may feel unrepresented when their area is lost to the Opposition. A commissioner may have lost favor with the upper echelon.
It may, also, go against itself as a forerunner to future change it anticipates another employee could execute more dexterously, if not with less resistance.
The lab environment is now the real world. Decisions are tweaked as it becomes easier to get away with what the rules denied.
And we have several examples of the PPP changing its ‘permanent contingent’ over the years…for whatever reason.
The point is, their permanence is flexible… within a system that outlaws flexibility.
This stands in operational contrast to the current Peoples National Congress- PNCR’s- stance on their GECOM appointments.
From all we’ve heard, their Commissioners come with strong political backgrounds…experiential and academic.
So, we know they know that the PNC/APNU was not elected Leader of the Opposition, post 2025 General Elections.
Actually, they ran ahead, only of the Forward Guyana Movement- FGM. And, since we’re on the point, by granular comparison, FGM out performed PNC /APNU by receiving enough votes to obtain a seat after, merely, 30 days on the Campaign trail, versus PNC/APNU’s 5 years.
Maybe, like the PPP’s reform that was constructed around the existence of the two perennial Parties, the PNC never anticipated to be uprooted by a third Party which, now, questions its views on Politics and Civics and its running emphasis of Guyana as a Democracy.
The institutional malady of “the view depends on where you sit” is so pathetically obvious here.
This makes it, all, very curious.
It is reasonable now for APNU, the usually vocal if not boisterous Opposition, to do like it’s Party Leader and attempt to squat in place, not for some convoluted interpretation of the law but because its raw, naked, interpretation meets its needs.
And this brings us to this observation.
There was never any PNC push back when the PPP went against the law of permanence of the GECOM appointees. There was never any insistence on adherence to the ‘letter of the law’ in protest to the multiple changes the PPP made over the years…the phrase that makes every decibel sound judicious and every person reciting it some sort of authority.
Why was there this silence by PNC when, since the institution of permanent seating, the PPP has been breaking the law?
It’s even more peculiar because the PNC Commissioners, actively fighting to disenfranchise the elected Opposition, WIN, have been sitting in GECOM since 2007, 2009 and 2017, respectively.
And, with Norton, currently, championing the charge to, effectively, prevent the duly elected Opposition its right to select its Commissioners, we’re betting this is more optics than compliance, more performance than substance.
After Leading the PNC to its historic loss, the ‘Political Scientist’ has self-promoted to APNU Chairman – confirming his obsession with labels that never come in his size.
The narrative in this ‘face the press moment’ all but confirms distraction, contradiction, and undermining of past positions, to the further peril of the restoration of the PNCR, to which he leeches for reference to anything but the routing he led it to.
The convenience of invoking the literal meaning of the rule when you have perennially enjoyed its intent- flexible interpretation– is a malevolent form of hypocrisy for a maneuvering that always comes with pay back.
He has already been a reverse talisman to the fortunes of the PNC, a Party whose standing and goodwill he has left comatose…is our opinion.
But what caused this silence, this stupefied acquiescence to, routinely, ignore flagrant rule-breaking, ask no questions of PPP changes to its own rule of permanent structure?
What made the PNC Commissioners and its leadership, in unison, act as if they had no duty to alert their constituents to what was, potentially, a manipulation of GECOM for PPP gain?
We say this because every election, General or Regional, voter list changes when contested, LARGELY went in PPP’s favor, as did most of all challenges made.
Was it grace, ineptitude, this posture of standing back from flagrant wrong doing?
We don’t think so.
Another thing we learned, a long time ago, was the concept of Weaponized Wrong Doing that tends to thrive in particularly poxed political environments. It’s a risk-reward exchange that comes with anticipation of backup from the dominant entity as compensation for some selective blindness to impactful mission-critical acts .
The back up now would be the apparent support we’re seeing in the seeming double Team effort of PNC and PPP to deny the elected Opposition, WIN, its rightful place and attendant stature that comes with the position of Opposition Leader.
This brings us back to the 3 PNC Commissioners, who, by every quantification, have failed the PNC to parallel the PPP achievements in use of GECOM to deliver similar gains to the voting constituency it serves.
And this cumulative failure for the 45 combined years of their tenure, amplifies their vehemence in the application of the ‘letter of the law’ to their appointment as Gecom Commissioners, as they ignore the ‘intent’ they accommodated for as many combined years, for individual benefit- is the opinion.
We’re not going to publish those salaries. It’s not what we’re inclined to do, especially since they’re in the public domain.
And all this piles up on a PNC with a leader equally as predisposed to personally exploiting the Party he has placed on life support, given last election results – is the general opinion.
As the newly minted ‘Chairman’ of APNU, it may have been more befitting of the office to ratchet down the perceived attacks on the Party that defeated it. Instead, we got the reported scolding of WIN by Norton- a temerity that is more cover than confidence.
You just got your posterior leathered, dude.
Look.
We’re generous and willing to whip out the over used cliché, ‘the courage of his convictions’ to offer a path for a graceful exit to Norton, the PNC’s resident political encumbrance.
But what are these convictions, when we only learn of them during tumult, induced chaos- the preferred cover to hide inability – because shallow decisions look like deep thinking during unsettlement.
The Party, that has been elected as the national Opposition Leader, must now fight to acquire what the PNCR enjoyed naturally. It’s another epitaph on the tombstone of this Party which remains unresponsive since the affliction of its ‘Norton Tenure’; that has left it suspended between death and dying.
And, it’s another scar of his political utilitarianism that will follow the PNC far into the future, most likely to posthumous disrepute fabricating a legacy, as he damages what’s left of the Party’s waning credibility, if he’s allowed to remain atop.