Mark Wil­son

Ex­pect some dra­ma to­mor­row. Guyana's Na­tion­al As­sem­bly is due to meet, for the first time in four months. The pres­i­dent, Don­ald Ramo­tar, looks nervy. He wants to block de­bate on a no-con­fi­dence mo­tion. He may plan to rule for a time with­out Par­lia­ment.

If it comes to a vote, the no-con­fi­dence mo­tion is like­ly to pass. The two op­po­si­tion par­ties–the small­er Al­liance for Change (AFC) which pro­posed it and the larg­er A Part­ner­ship for Na­tion­al Uni­ty (AP­NU) which plans to vote in favour–to­geth­er hold a sin­gle-seat ma­jor­i­ty.If it pass­es, there must be a new elec­tion with­in 90 days–done and dust­ed in time for a bounc­ing Mashra­mani Car­ni­val on Feb­ru­ary 23.

Un­der pres­sure for Par­lia­ment to meet, Ramo­tar made a tele­vised ad­dress last Tues­day. He an­nounced a date–No­vem­ber 10. But he said that if the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly ma­jor­i­ty "in­tends to dis­rupt the gov­ern­ment's busi­ness by forc­ing a de­bate on their no-con­fi­dence mo­tion," he will "ei­ther pro­rogue or dis­solve Par­lia­ment, paving the way for hold­ing of gen­er­al elec­tions."

With the dread­ed no-con­fi­dence mo­tion now firm­ly sched­uled, it's not clear how Speak­er Raphael Trot­man will han­dle the agen­da, or how the pres­i­dent will re­act. Does Trot­man move slow­ly through the 33-page or­der pa­per? Or does he go straight for the kill?

And the pres­i­dent? Does he dis­solve or pro­rogue Par­lia­ment ahead of Mon­day? Send in his chief whip Gail Teix­eira with a pre-signed procla­ma­tion in her hand­bag? Hov­er out­side, pen and pa­per in hand? Or does he sit in his of­fice at cell­phone dis­tance, wait­ing for news?In­deed, it's not clear how Trot­man would deal with an at­tempt to pro­rogue the as­sem­bly while de­bate is in full flow.

This is Guyana. Laws of physics are sus­pend­ed. Grav­i­ty re­pels; wa­ter flows up­hill. I'm writ­ing on Fri­day morn­ing. Plen­ty could hap­pen be­fore Mon­day.Guyana's pres­i­dent can dis­solve or pro­rogue Par­lia­ment at any time. There's a big dif­fer­ence, though, be­tween "dis­solve" and "pro­rogue." If Ramo­tar dis­solves Par­lia­ment, it means elec­tions with­in 90 days. That's ef­fec­tive­ly the same re­sult as a no-con­fi­dence vote. On­ly dif­fer­ence: the pres­i­dent saves a bit of face.

If he pro­rogues Par­lia­ment, the re­sult is dif­fer­ent. Elec­tions are not trig­gered. Ramo­tar and his Cab­i­net stay in of­fice. And things get in­ter­est­ing. Par­lia­ment must meet again with­in six months. At that point, the Op­po­si­tion can again threat­en a no-con­fi­dence mo­tion. Ramo­tar can again pro­rogue.Gov­ern­ments can rule with­out Par­lia­ment for a time. We found that out with the 18-18. Patrick Man­ning played a sim­i­lar card.

The 18-18 elec­tion was in De­cem­ber 2001. Par­lia­ment did not meet un­til April 2002. When it did meet, the ses­sion turned to farce. Suc­ces­sive can­di­dates for speak­er were vot­ed down. At Man­ning's re­quest, pres­i­dent Arthur NR Robin­son pro­rogued the ses­sion. Af­ter a re­peat per­for­mance in Au­gust, fresh elec­tions were held in Oc­to­ber 2002. By then, it was pret­ty much a full year with no Par­lia­ment.

Man­ning's hand was forced be­cause he need­ed a bud­get. On the face of it, the same ap­plies to Ramo­tar. In Guyana, the bud­get must go to Par­lia­ment by the end of March, and pass by the end of April. With no bud­get, the Gov­ern­ment can't write cheques–not un­less it has some very fan­cy le­gal loop­hole in mind, which seems un­like­ly.

Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion in Guyana have been in face-off mode for close to 60 years. A love out­break by March is un­like­ly. If Ramo­tar goes the pro­rogue route, the re­con­vened Na­tion­al As­sem­bly would whizz through a no-con­fi­dence vote, not pass a bud­get.So–back to the 90-day elec­tion trail; but it would not be like a Feb­ru­ary poll. There would be two nasty dif­fer­ences.

First dif­fer­ence. With an elec­tion called in March or April, the bud­get dead­line comes long be­fore a new Par­lia­ment can meet. Lawyers would have to ar­gue the "doc­trine of ne­ces­si­ty" for rou­tine spend­ing to con­tin­ue.

Sec­ond dif­fer­ence. The cur­rent vot­ers' list is valid up to Jan­u­ary 31. So if an elec­tion is called lat­er, there should in prin­ci­ple be a new list. That would mean a con­vo­lut­ed claims and ob­jec­tions process, which nor­mal­ly takes months. How the Con­sti­tu­tion han­dles that dilem­ma is any­one's guess.

Teix­eira, mean­while, wants to haul AFC leader Khem­raj Ram­jat­tan be­fore the priv­i­leges com­mit­tee. He said in Sep­tem­ber that he had been "re­li­ably in­formed" of gov­ern­ment plans to "buy out" three op­po­si­tion mem­bers, and vote down the no-con­fi­dence mo­tion. The price? Just Guy $30 mil­lion each, or around TT$925,000.

Even if that were true, it would not end Ramo­tar's trou­bles. In Guyana, par­ty lead­ers can fire and re­place MPs with no trou­ble­some by-elec­tion. So that cash would buy on­ly bad tem­pers, and a new vote a few weeks lat­er.

For re­al dra­ma, look to Cu­ra�ao. When Ger­rit Schotte's gov­ern­ment lost its ma­jor­i­ty two years ago, his sup­port­ers locked the Par­lia­ment cham­ber. Op­po­si­tion mem­bers found some­where else to meet, and vot­ed him out. Big dif­fer­ence: Cu­ra�ao has a Dutch-ap­point­ed gov­er­nor, who in­stalled an in­ter­im ad­min­is­tra­tion and called elec­tions.Guyana has no ref­er­ee. The coun­try needs clear lead­er­ship. That means fresh elec­tions, and fresh think­ing. Ramo­tar needs to face re­al­i­ty.