‘NO DEMOCRACY WORKS WITHOUT COMPROMISE’

The headline statement of President Barack Obama was of general application. It assumed more resonance when the Democrats lost the majority in Congress. The PPP learned the lesson that politics is the art of compromise before President Obama was born. Compromise was the basis of its early leadership. It was attempted during the crisis years […]

‘THE CHICKENS HAVE COME HOME TO ROAST’

As expected, the anti money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism legislation (AML/CFT) has not been passed in the National Assembly. The months of discourse, debate, committee meetings, efforts to compromise, public statements, even a visit by a CFATF official, have not yielded any positive results. The losers and victims of the failure to […]

WHAT THE CHIEF JUSTICE RULED

The section on Financial Procedures in the Standing Orders of the National Assembly is the same today as it was in 1969. In that year the Standing Orders were amended, no doubt to bring them in line with the provisions of the Independence Constitution of 1966. The Standing Orders had been approved by the same […]

ELECTION RESULTS

Last week’s headlines highlighted efforts by GECOM to speed up the reporting of election results by introducing electronic counting and compilation of votes for a limited area, presumably as a pilot project. The last general and regional elections were characterized be extensive delay in announcing election results in Guyana and there was an outcry against […]

A SOCIAL CONTRACT FOR GUYANA

(This article, slightly amended, was first published in 2010 in the Mirror and Guyana Chronicle. It attracted no comments. Though somewhat dated,  the views might be considered still relevant). Guyana is not unique in its system of adversarial politics. In fact, Guyana shares with most democratic countries an elected legislature to which competing parties seek […]