Dear Editor,
It is rather refreshing to see Mr Raphael Trotman and the AFC support the call for shared governance and have a position on it. May I remind him and his colleagues that ACDA’s position on shared governance is not the fourth model as he indicated. Memory should allow him to remember ACDA was one of the very first organizations to present a paper on shared governance to the Constitutional Reform Commission ages before the PPP and PNC and now the AFC presented theirs. ACDA, like the WPA, has been consistent about this issue for more than a decade. This principle has been in ACDA’s foundation papers since 1993.
I would also like to remind the PPP and their supporters of what their Founder/Leader Dr Cheddi Jagan presented in 1988 in a paper entitled ‘Race, Class and Nationhood: The Afro Guyanese Experience,’ written jointly with Moses Nagamootoo for the 150th Anniversary of the ending of African Apprenticeship and the beginning of Indian Indentureship. They wrote: “…the greatest tribute we can pay to our ancestors is to pledge to unite and struggle for complete emancipation, which can only come from a multi-ethnic, broad-based revolutionary democracy. It is imperative for the survival and prosperity of this great nation to forge a modus vivendi, a formula for power-sharing, reflective of the composition and interest of all sections of the Guyanese people…” The current PPP leadership has lost its way.
The AFC from Mr Trotman’s letter, seems to agree with those organizations and individuals in civil society who believe shared governance is best for Guyana. Indeed. Mr Trotman states “the AFC is advocating a bottom-up approach that begins with empowering people at the level of villages and communities.” He also stated, “Village Councils and Neighbourhood Democratic Councils need to be reconstituted and given new levels of autonomy, while Regional Democratic Councils need to be allowed to function with less interference from central government, including independent executive officers.” These statements are most welcome and reassuring.
Mr Trotman in stating in his letter that at the moment there is no platform for sustainable executive power-sharing, because there is a lack of respect and trust among the political actors, has confirmed to me the AFC will not be an “agent of change” but just another third party hoping and praying for change − powerless, toothless and irrelevant to progress in Guyana. He shows that his party has bought the PPP bogeyman hook, line and sinker. His letter also brought the PPP’s Mr Kwame McCoy to say in a letter, “the PPP/C believes that a conscious effort is required by the major political parties to build trust and establish confidence. Without such trust, suspicion will continue, motives will be questioned, policies will be judged on distorted criteria, resource allocation will always be followed by allegations of partisanship and agreements will be difficult to arrive at.”
In 2004 former US President Jimmy Carter after meeting with President Jagdeo in 2004 expressed doubt that the PPP/C “would commence new dialogue with the PNC, be willing to make any substantive moves to implement the National Development Strategy, share political authority with other parties, or permit members of parliament to be elected by their own constituencies, instead of being chosen from party lists on a proportional basis.”
The issue of trust is a massive cop-out. Mr Trotman’s comments basically say he and the AFC have no ideas on how to move forward or lead. No ideas and no moral courage. In reality, it seems as if both major opposition parties are at a loss and cannot lead Guyana to better days. Everyone knows that President Jagdeo is not being candid when he talks about inclusive governance. This means there will never be a platform for inclusive governance once he is there unless he is forced to change. This is simple logic.
Mr Trotman warns that if the PPP is brought to the table under duress the process would not be sustainable, and cites Zimbabwe as an illustration. This is the talk of losers. Why not mention places where there have been successful negotiations for power-sharing instead of offering us a model of failure whose circumstances are very different from those in Guyana. Leaders find solutions. They create a vision, they communicate that vision, they then mobilize to achieve their vision. What I am interpreting from the AFC and also from the PNC is there is no vision for change, just a hope and a prayer that the PPP will change.
Two final points. Most people in Guyana do not trust politicians and politicians don’t trust each other. But enlightened leadership will see Mandela didn’t have to trust De Klerk to bring shared governance to South Africa after millions of Black South Africans had been murdered for over 40 years. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi didn’t have to trust their oppressors to bring about change. In 1997, a brave President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat made peace with the Israelis without having to trust them.
One of the reasons President Jagdeo will not move towards shared governance is because of what Dr Clive Thomas has correctly described as our criminal economy.
The AFC’s strategy is quite clear from its letter; it says that change must come from the people, not the top, and that, “People must have freedom of choice in their villages and communities, with the accompanying right to raise and spend revenue as they see fit…” Given the state of local government reform, this change the AFC is dreaming about will occur at the 2016 elections because they will not fight for shared governance at the executive level until local government reforms have been completed, therefore allowing them to seek constitutional reform for executive power sharing.
Finally, Guyanese are suffering. All races are suffering because of this pernicious Westminster system. Visionary leadership knows the change must be top down in Guyana. Set the vision and mobilize the masses to this vision. To ask the reverse is madness or shows a lack of leadership. Chaos, political malfeasance and racial tensions will only increase by this bottom-up process. To believe a bottom-up process in a racially divided nation will bear fruit rather than chaos shows a peculiar type of non-leadership. Those who believe a bottom-up approach will work have never run a successful business.
Guyana is crying out for leadership and our political bosses are offering us excuses and unbridled cowardice as an answer. Perhaps the boycotting of Parliament as I suggested 3 years ago for the release of Mark Benschop would be a good non-violent start in the spirit of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. The Parliament is useless. There is nothing to stop both political parties from a non-violent removal from a rubber stamp Parliament where the opposition is toothless and idealess.
The AFC came into existence calling itself a “change agent.” The only change we are seeing is a room with more political ‘smoke.’ I have no personal quarrel with the AFC. My quarrel is about the AFC providing a glimmer of hope in this desperate landscape and then defaulting on that promise of ‘change agents.’ They are no different than the other parties. Their position on shared governance is about nice words but no action.
Yours faithfully,
Eric Phillips
