Sep 15, 2025
Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – It was a Saturday evening meant for the ceremony of swearing-in of Ministers. The weather was fine; the mood of the nation expectant and the ambiance at State House was one that lent to ceremony.

One expects, at such occasions, the cadence of protocol, the reverence of tradition, the careful observance of distinctions that form the backbone of government. Yet, what unfolded at the swearing-in of Ministers last Saturday was confusion born of a fundamental breach.

After the swearing-in, the President, having summoned his new Cabinet for a photo-op, then invited the other persons who will join them as Members of Parliament to come forward. He went as far as announcing the names of these persons. It was a gesture no doubt intended as generous, as inclusive. But it was wrong. Wrong because it erased a vital boundary between the government of the state and the apparatus of the ruling party. Those other persons invited to come forward were not taking any oath of office; they were partisan appointees.

The Cabinet is government. Ministers are appointed by the President under the Constitution. Their swearing-in is a constitutional act, the investiture of state authority.  Other members of Parliament, though, belong to another category. They are the outcome of party nomination and electoral victory, and though they sit in the National Assembly, their presence on Saturday was not required at State House, nor was it correct to announce their names there. To conflate Cabinet with caucus is to conflate government with party.

Here, in miniature, was a dangerous imprecision. And imprecision is never accidental in politics. It reflects a deeper disorder of thought, a failure to respect the forms that protect against excess. The President’s action may have been impulsive and innocent, but impulse in ceremony betrays ignorance of purpose. Ceremony is not for show; it is for order. Under the Westminster system, the distinction between government and party is foundational. The government refers to the executive authority of the State, exercised by the Prime Minister and Cabinet who are formally appointed to govern on behalf of the Republic, and who are accountable to Parliament and, ultimately, the people.

The political party, on the other hand, is a private organization whose purpose is to contest elections, secure power, and promote its ideological platform. While the governing party supplies the personnel for the Cabinet, the Cabinet itself operates as an institution of the state, bound by constitutional rules and public duty, not by party loyalty alone. To conflate the two is to confuse a partisan vehicle with the machinery of State.

In essence what was glimpsed on Saturday night was the temptation to present party as State, to collapse the two into one seamless entity. Yet democracy depends upon their separation. Ministers act in the name of the Republic; parliamentarians, in the name of their constituents. To confuse the two is to imperil both. One might argue what is the harm in a photograph? Are we to quibble over optics? But optics are not neutral. A photograph at a state event is not just an image; it is a record, a claim to legitimacy. When the President called forward the other MPs, he ran the risk of signalling to the watching public that party and State are indistinguishable. That impression corrodes constitutional order.

What was seen on Saturday was the ruling party basking in the aura of State power, using the solemn moment of Cabinet formation as an occasion of partisan display. The irony is that this breach was unnecessary. The President had already secured his Cabinet, already made his choices. The occasion was theirs alone. There was no reason to invite other MPs. And that instinct, however understandable in politics, is destructive in governance.

It is a defect of post-colonial States that the forms of democracy were mimicked without the substance being understood. The ceremony would be performed, but the meaning was lost. The outward sign of law and protocol would be retained, but hollowed out by confusion and improvisation.

No one doubts the President’s intelligence, nor his command of politics. But command of politics is not command of statecraft. The latter requires the ability to submit to forms larger than oneself. The oath, the swearing-in, the ministerial warrant—these are not props for spectacle, they are constitutional instruments. To dilute them with party intrusion is to devalue them. It is not too much to say that someone must advise the President. He must be told that such conflations can set precedents. In the distinction between party and government lies the safeguard of democracy. On Saturday night, the President forgot it. That is why it matters. That is why it must be said: the President was wrong.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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