In a joint press release last week the three Parliamentary opposition parties accused the Government of a lack of commitment to inclusiveness and transparency. Their comments came in the context of the failure of the two sides to reach accord on the composition of the Parliamentary Management Committee (PMC) and on the sectoral committees created by amendments to the constitution. For its part, the Government denied the allegations, stating that as it was, compromises had been made which had resulted in agreements on most of the issues, and that the few remaining areas of disagreement should not inhibit further discussions.

As things stand, there is harmony between the two sides on the terms of reference for the four sectoral committees - natural resources, economic services, foreign relations and social services - as well as on the wording for the motion to establish the PMC. According to the combined opposition, the disagreement comes over the "composition, chairing and membership of the committees." It claims that the Government is insisting that it should have a majority of 6:5 on all the committees, and that ministers should be members of them. To accept this, says the Opposition, would be to "eviscerate the very intention and purpose of the agreed constitutional reform process."

Their proposal is that there should be equal representation on the PMC and that the opposition should chair the sectoral committees - although in the latter instance they would be prepared to compromise by accepting a rotating chairmanship. They are of the view, however, that ministers should be prohibited from being members of the committees on the grounds that the principle of Cabinet unanimity would make their review functions a farce.

A release from Minister Reepu Daman Persaud's office responded by saying that the Government's position was similar "to what obtains in well-established parliamentary democracies." In the case of the ten-member PMC it rejected the proposal for equal representation on the grounds that it was a parliamentary select committee and its composition must be in accord with Standing Order 72(1) which required that as far as possible it should be constituted in such a way as to reflect the ratio of the parties in the National Assembly. The Government, continued the statement, remained committed to inclusiveness. It might be remarked, of course, that no Standing Order can take precedence over the constitution, and if the former really is out of consonance with the latter, then it is the former which would have to be amended. The relevant clause in the constitution simply provides that the chairperson and deputy chairperson of each committee should come from opposite sides of the National Assembly, so what we are talking about in this instance is the spirit of the constitution, and not the letter. While both sides insist they are committed to inclusiveness, therefore, they are placing quite different interpretations on that concept.

The Government argument that their position is in line with what happens in established democracies elsewhere is not helpful, considering that one of the aims of the constitutional reform process was to move beyond the 'winner takes all' political framework associated with the Westminster model. If it is that model which the PPP/Civic seeks to retain, therefore, then they are definitely not in tandem with the spirit of the new amendments. Inclusiveness which is interpreted to mean that the opposition has representatives on committees, but that the Government retains control of the latter, is simply not inclusiveness in the true sense of the term.

And just why is the Government so obsessed about retaining control of the sectoral committees in any case? It has control of Parliament by virtue of its overall majority, so why must it dominate the sectoral committees as well, which after all are not legislative bodies? And as for the PMC, that was introduced to give the Opposition a real say in the management of Parliament business, and to prevent a return to the situation where the PPP/Civic just used the National Assembly as a rubber stamp. If, therefore, the Government wields a majority on that committee too, then nothing will change and again the whole point of the constitutional amendment will be defeated.

The matter of whether ministers should sit on the sectoral committees or not depends at least partly on the terms of reference of those committees. To date these have not been made public. If their function is purely one of review, then the Opposition has a point. One might have hoped, however, that in the case of the foreign relations parliamentary committee, at least, review would not have been its primary function. Since the most critical aspect of foreign relations relates to our borders, one might have hoped that this particular committee would have provided a framework for the creation of a bi-partisan policy approach. As such, therefore, it would be necessary that the Minister of Foreign Affairs should sit on it. The compromise proposal of a rotating chairman of the sectoral committees put forward by the Opposition has an immediate appeal, although in the interest of continuity it could be argued that a chairman/woman should be left in place for the duration of at least a year.

It would appear that the PPP/Civic has yet to recognize that a political majority based on a built-in demographic advantage in an ethnically divided society is not the highest expression of democracy. The Government has to make a leap of faith, and loosen its stranglehold on every official institution in this country; stability, development and, it might be added, greater democracy, do not lie down that road. While it has made some compromises already, it has to make some more, so that its commitment to genuine inclusiveness rather than token inclusiveness is placed beyond question.