–and a contrast with Jamaica’s welcome new political mood
Analysis by Rickey Singh
LAST THURSDAY, Guyana created a new kind of history in parliamentary governance in the Caribbean when the combined opposition took advantage of a one-seat majority in the National Assembly to elect the new Speaker, and without any attempt to reach a consensus with the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP). The contention by Executive President, Donald Ramotar, and leading spokespersons for the PPP in favour of an established convention that the majority party in parliament be given the opportunity to nominate the Speaker, was ignored.
The result was that the main opposition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) –which is overwhelmingly dominated by the old People’s National Congress — and the minor Alliance For Change (AFC) voted on the basis of a deal between them for the AFC’s leader, Raphael Trotman, being elected Speaker, and APNU’s parliamentarian, Deborah Backer as Deputy Speaker.
That scenario, incidentally, stood in sharp contrast to what has been taking place in Jamaica since the landslide 42-21 parliamentary victory of Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller’s People’s National Party (PNP) over the first-term Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) that had two PMs within its four-year stint — Bruce Golding and a brief two months into the election of Andrew Holness.
For all the passionate debates, verbal scurrilities and boastful, arrogant displays during the December 29 campaign for the 63-member House of Representatives, the general prevailing post-election mood in the leadership structures of both the victorious PNP and defeated JLP has been one of political correctness, with offerings of mature statements in favour of consensus-building in the national interest.
When, therefore, the ceremonial opening of the new Jamaica Parliament occurs, as scheduled on Tuesday, there is expected to be traditional behaviour in the election of a Speaker from the PNP,  with the Deputy Speaker coming from the JLP.
The drug barons and the illicit trade in guns had contributed much to spawning the image — a terrible burden borne by this Caribbean nation — as a so-called leading “murder capital of the world”. In reality, that distasteful reputation had been overtaken by Trinidad and Tobago, for one, long before the sensational capture and extradition of the infamous Christopher “Dudus” Coke and subsequent plans for last month’s snap general election.

Jamaica as “example”
Today’s climate of party political maturity in Jamaica, where political tribalism had spawned a most daunting history of killings and rampant gun-related violence, therefore offers a welcome example for Guyana.
For here, home of the CARICOM Secretariat, is where endemic electoral fraud, sustained over 24 years of one-party rule by the PNC; deep politicisation of the army and police; throttled press freedom; race-based voting patterns; and the forging of personal and opportunistic political deals would combine to help explain contributory factors that influenced the negative political message delivered to the nation by last Thursday’s election of Speaker and Deputy Speaker from the opposition benches.
At the November Presidential, Parliamentary and Regional elections, the incumbent PPP retained the presidency (with enormous constitutional powers) for a fifth consecutive term, but lost by one seat control of the House under the electoral system of proportional representation (PR). Guyana is the only CARICOM state to have a wholly PR system and an executive presidency.
In comparison to the PPP’s largest bloc of popular votes (166,340) — acquired both at the national and regional levels for its 32 seats — the APNU secured 139, 678 votes for its 26 seats, while the AFC polled 35,333 votes for its seven seats. 
Having separately campaigned to prevent a return by the PPP to office for a fifth consecutive term, the APNU ( a collection of small parties dominated by the PNC) and AFC were to find themselves closeted in striking post-election deals to frustrate the incumbent at the level of parliament with their combined one-seat majority.

‘Winner’ and ‘loser’
Last Thursday’s voting pattern to give them both Speaker and Deputy Speaker fully dramatised the kind of “unity partnership” APNU intends to pursue, with the AFC in tow, for as long as is expedient.
Both APNU and the AFC had failed to submit the names of their representatives, as agreed at an initial meeting with the President, to deal with identified matters of national priorities. Subsequently, APNU and the AFC were to be engaged in manoeuvres for the former getting the Speaker’s job.
When that gambit in political expediency failed, and amid public hints at the AFC’s likely shift in favour of the PPP’s nominee, APNU, which had strenuously opposed the AFC’s  original candidate, Moses Nagamootoo, as being “unsuitable” (according to its leader, David Granger),  hastily struck a deal for the AFC’s leader, Trotman, to be Speaker, in the absence of  any rotation agreement.
Perhaps the big loser in all of this political horse-trading would evidently be Nagamootoo, a former PPP stalwart of long years. He was early announced by the AFC’s chairman and presidential candidate, Khemraj Ramjattan, as the party’s nominee for Speaker, with a public warning that there would be “no backing down… no compromise.”
Even when the idea of rotating the Speakership was floated, both Ramjattan and the AFC’s leader, Trotman — a former executive of the PNC — went on record as declaring in favour of Nagamootoo having the first jump as Speaker.
In the surprising, eventual deal, Trotman, who may have in spirit made a quiet “home” return to a PNC base currently held by APNU, gladly accepted the election as Speaker, ironically, with Nagamootoo as seconder of his nomination, and with AFC chairman, Ramjattan, once his most vigorous promoter, yet to explain what suddenly brought about the change in favour of Trotman.
“Politics,” the late President Forbes Burnham was fond of saying, “is the science of deals.” Well! Let’s see how this APNU/AFC deal on the Speaker and Deputy Speaker works, in the interest of political stability and progress of Guyana.
Personally, I would be surprised if President Ramotar does not authorise a snap general election by 2014, and BEFORE mid-term for the current parliament.