“According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway. Because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible” – Bee Movie.
Having read different opinion pieces especially those that posit that opposition cooperation is a pie in the sky I wish to bring these quote to their attention perhaps it could shed light and present another alternative view of why it can work and has to work. Sometimes it is easier to come up with artificial reasons based on conventional thinking or practises to justify why something cannot work like in the case of opposition cooperation. Some base their arguments on the ideological differences of the parties involved while others point to the insatiable appetite for power by individual parties that render partners of the project impossible to make concessions that are critical to provide the missing links to deliver the envisaged product. The danger is these position papers or opinion pieces provide fodder to the enemy camp in the likes of the ruling party. Because the very owners of the project cast aspirations on the said project much to the joy of the BDP, the latter will later on use that line of thinking to dismiss the project before the voters. They will rhetorically ask the voters how they can entrust their lives to a project whose owners themselves don’t have confidence in. This is why, in spite of an entitlement to freedom of expression and opinion, the detractors should hold their views at least for now to allow for deliberations to take course.
It also follows that because we are told the issue of cooperation was given a clean bill of health at individual party congresses, then If so, those holding different views and expressing them publicly are out of order. They can be kindly advised to refrain from such sentiments that are contaminating and polluting the talks with their poison pens. They come from all political parties involved and some have regular columns in the print media.
Now back to the talks; leaders should prevail over their teams at the negotiating tables to represent official views and positions of the parties. The reason being the talks have attracted so much public attention and the public wants to judge if there are some misdemeanours or unreasonable rogues at talks who are posturing when they are in the public domain and do the opposite at the talks. There is confusion in the public discourse, the unfolding of the talks (perhaps with little exaggeration from the media) and the commitment pledged and displayed by parties does not tally.
The public expects those pledges and perceived commitment to transform into tangible positive results. Otherwise the parties risk being labelled all sorts of names. There have been a lot of debates surrounding the formula of dividing constituencies which seems to be thorn on the flesh.
The issue of incumbency seems to be so contentious for the partners. First and foremost I want to break down incumbency into two for purposes of scrutinising it further. Incumbency may mean giving parties those constituencies that currently they have sitting MPs or councillors. In this respect incumbency should be understood in the context of the party and not the individual representative.
Under this arrangement, it is incumbent for individual parties to decide as to whether sitting representatives are protected or subjected to primary elections just for that party. To avoid acrimonious infighting and infiltration by the enemy camp, at this stage primary elections should be deliberately discouraged. Logically this dispensation, I would say favours all partners and achieves parity on the basis of strength of each party. I personally believe this criterion should be anonymously adopted if negotiations are in good faith. Another dimension to incumbency can be giving those constituencies to parties who in turn shall hold in-house primary elections to decide the candidates. The idea of holding a free for all primary elections cutting across all parties is a non-starter, cumbersome and irregular. I am of the opinion that this arrangement will cause more harm than good and should be discouraged at all cost. Those who advocate for it under the pretext of democracy want to spell doom for the coalition. Who said elections alone defines democracy. A majority decision is democratic, and most organisations from boardrooms to political parties use it without necessarily subjecting the process to a vote. Those who equate not holding primary elections to the unpopular compromise list of the BDP deliberately do so to confuse the masses. It is widely believed that at BDP, the views of a minority or to be precise the President is supreme. This is not to say the same process will repeat itself in 2019.
By 2019, a new chapter would have been turned. By 2019, the wishes and expectations is that the honey moon would be over. A good and relevant example here at home is the marriage between BCP and BAM. After achieving the desired results after 2009 elections, both camps were convinced they could merge. The public expects a new dispensation after 2014 leading to the 2019 national elections in the form of a new baby formed out of the cooperating partners.
Secondly, the criterion of the runners-up to BDP in the 2009 general elections should be used. Here the idea of the winner- takes-it ÔÇôall attitude should be discouraged. Considering that a new party like BMD did not contest elections, concessions should be made to accommodate it. In this bracket of constituencies the Party that did not contest elections should also not demand equal share of constituencies to those who contested elections. A hybrid formula with serious tradeoffs will be ideal. The common denominator is selfishness should be condemned and despised within the talks to send a message that sanity prevails among the opposition cooperation.
