By Rickey Singh,
Contributor
THE POLITICAL/Constitu-tional impasse in two Caribbean Community (CARICOM) states Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago will be the focus of attention when the Community leaders hold a special caucus during their two-day meeting in Montego Bay this week.
Officially, it is the Sixth Meeting of heads of government of Canada and CARICOM which begins on Thursday, January 18. But arrangements have been made for the Caribbean leaders to meet in caucus to be briefed on the current political problems in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago and their implications for governance in the rest of the Community.
The CARICOM leader very much involved in monitoring and reporting on those problems is the Prime Minister of St. Lucia, Kenny Anthony, who has lead responsibility among Community heads of government for Justice and Governance.
A constitutional lawyer and former head of the Legal Division of the CARICOM Secretariat, Anthony was due in Trinidad and Tobago Monday, at the invitation of Prime Minister Basdeo Panday, for a briefing on post-December 11 election problems.
The emphasis will be on the refusal by President A.N.R. Robinson to appoint seven defeated candidates of the ruling United National Congress (UNC) as Senators, resulting in the government's complement of 16 Senators being incomplete for the 31-member Senate, and also delaying the final shape of Panday's planned 17-member Cabinet.
In refusing to act on the advice of the Prime Minister in the appointment of the seven defeated candidates as Senators, the President has assumed a role not protected by the country's Constitution.
While, on moral ground there has been expressed support from various interest groups, there has been no legal support for his interpretation of the Constitution to justify his position.
In addition to meeting with Panday, Anthony is also expected to meet with Opposition Leader Patrick Manning of the People's National Movement (PNM) and would also pay a visit on Robinson, if possible.
Unlike the role he plays in relation to the Guyana political impasse, however, Anthony's visit to Trinidad and Tobago does not involve mediation. His briefing will form part of the discussion in Jamaica when CARICOM leaders meet with Panday.
Last week, as he was in touch, by phone, with Panday and later Manning, Anthony was also engaged with the tense Guyana political situation.
This relates primarily to a demand by the main opposition People's National Congress (PNC) for the People's Progressive Party (PPP)/Civic administration make way for a new and temporary system of governance from January 18 until the outcome of the scheduled March 19 elections.
The PNC's contention is that the CARICOM-brokered Herdmanston Accord of January 1998, had provided for new elections by January 17, 2001.
Herdmanston Accord
Since the elections will now take place on March 19, it contends that the PPP/Civic should vacate office and function instead as part of a new governance arrangement involving the Opposition and civil society.
This has been firmly rejected by President Bharrat Jagdeo and the PPP as having no constitutional basis. The Government has agreed instead, and so informed Prime Minister Anthony, to exercise voluntary restraint in governance by avoiding any major policy initiative or action to disadvantage the Opposition.
As CARICOM's point man on the monitoring of arrangements for new elections in Guyana based on the Herdmanston Accord, Anthony wrote the PNC leader, Desmond Hoyte, last week informing him that in the current circumstances, the Guyana Constitution prevails over what was envisaged in the Herdmanston Accord.
He noted that the Accord and related St. Lucia Statement of July 1998, "cannot address this particular situation (delay in the election), it is to the Constitution that we must turn for guidance, bearing in mind the spirit and intent of the Accord and the Statement..."
So what happens after January 17 will clearly involve CARICOM which had pledged to "remain engaged" with Guyana at the time of the brokered Herdmanston Accord.
Given the time factor, President Jagdeo has decided to remain at home to deal with whatever problems may arise, and is sending to the Canada-CARICOM Summit his Foreign Minister, Clement Rohee, who will provide a full briefing to the Community leaders in addition to the report from Prime Minister Anthony.
But Guyanese are currently more concerned with an expected ruling tomorrow by High Court Judge Claudette Singh, on the election petition from the PNC challenging the results of the December 15, 1997 poll.
The PPP/Civic won the election with a majority of 55.3 per cent of the valid popular votes and an overall Parliamentary majority of seven.
The judge had indicated that she would give her ruling on Friday, January 12 coincidentally the third anniversary of the violent street protests in Georgetown by the PNC against the election results.
But lawyers were advised on Friday morning that she was indisposed and would deliver the judgement tomorrow instead.
A CARICOM Audit Commission had confirmed that its examinations of the 1,843 boxes of ballots cast in all 10 electoral regions "did not reveal any fraud" and that the "secret code was evident in all ballots scrutinised..."
Civil society representatives have been appealing to the leaders of the Parliamentary parties to resume dialogue and avoid any development that could result in a recurrence of political disturbances and ethnic conflicts.
Support for the PPP/Civic administration to continue in office pending the outcome of the March 19 election for which a bi-partisan Elections Commission is solely responsible has also been growing.
Rickey Singh is a veteran journalist.
