Dear Editor,
Was the Guyana Chronicle sending a message to its limited audience when it gave prominence to the news article, ‘Gonsalves backs removing term limits for Caricom leaders,’ (July 8)? In the article, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Mr Ralph Gonsalves, reportedly said that because there is a shortage of quality leadership in the region, there should be an end to artificial term limits for heads of government, but even before he shared his opinion, President Bharrat Jagdeo was on record as saying he will not seek a third term. So, is the Chronicle’s prominent placement of the article a sign that the President is slowly coming out of his political closet with feelers on an issue some of us have long wondered being in the pipeline with the quiet support of the PNC?
What PM Gonsalves said, on the surface, may make sense, given that individual Caricom countries do not have a vast reserve of political leaders waiting in the wings who are duly qualified, appropriately trained and reasonably experienced enough to lead a nation, but once we start delving deeply we will see why his reasoning is flawed and should not be seen as worthy of consideration across the board in the region.
First, when PM Gonsalves, a known socialist, defended his suggestion for abolishing term limits by saying, “We don’t have to imitate everything the Americans do,” the truth is, the introduction of term limits in the Caribbean, including Guyana, was not based on the American presidential system, per se, but on the disconcerting perception in the region that in the post-colonial era we actually developed a cadre of career politicians whose exceedingly long stay in politics have not only discouraged many young political aspirants with fresh, independent thinking, but have also turned these tenured politicians into human fixtures in government institutions who tend to create an environment conducive to corruption, nepotism, cronyism and authoritarianism. Political newcomers either have to bend or bow to these dinosaurs before they can get a leg up, while their ideas for change and development often times get shelved. Party politics almost always trump people with principled positions for public progress.
In Guyana’s case, for example, the biggest post-colonial concern has been the penchant for the head of government to behave like an authoritarian, à la Forbes Burnham and Bharrat Jagdeo, thanks to a 1980 constitution that protects the president, while in office or after he demits office, from lawsuits and indictments for any action he takes as president. While Burnham was disposed to being authoritarian he was smart enough to always appear to abide by the law;
Jagdeo, however, doesn’t even pretend to respect the law. His authoritarianism allows him to assume almost any government responsibility at will and to make all sorts of public pronouncements, even on legal matters outside his official purview.
Second, I don’t know if St Vincent and the Grenadines has term limits, nor do I know what PM Gonsalves knows about other Caricom countries with term limits that made him say what he said, but before he can talk about abolishing term limits, he should apprise himself of every Caricom country’s political reality, so not all Guyanese share his misguided call for an end to term limits. For his information, in Guyana the two major races have been divided along ethnic lines because of the PPP and PNC, so there is no national unity behind the party in government on national issues. He needs to know that despite its rich natural resources Guyana continues to struggle economically after 28 years under the PNC and 17 years under the PPP.
He needs to know about the corruption, nepotism and cronyism in Guyana’s government, the unaccountability of hundreds of millions of dollars based on the Auditor General’s reports, the government’s refusal/failure to break its monopoly on radio, the failure by the President to sign into law a number of bills passed by Parliament. He needs to know that the people of Guyana recently may have lost US$34M because of the Jagdeo administration’s failure to ensure its Insurance Commissioner did her job applying punitive measures in Section 39 of the Insurance Act when CLICO (GY) violated Section 55 of said Insurance Act and invested over 15% of its funds overseas.
Worse, he needs to know that the Jagdeo administration refused to conduct a public probe to help Guyanese depositors learn what sort of arrangements existed between CLICO (GY) and CLICO (BH), in which money went directly from Georgetown to a bank in Florida, and opted to push for parliamentary legislation to have CLICO (GY) and the Insurance Commissioner’s Office placed under Bank of Guyana supervision. Depositors are still clueless about what happened to their money. He needs to know that even though the President promised to have his government honour all CLICO (GY) claims by digging into the public treasury to borrow money and then have it repaid over ten years that this really is not how a responsible government should do business with people’s money, because the people are losing twice in this matter.
He needs to know Guyana also had what is probably the worst period of murders (over 200 by one account) under the Jagdeo administration, featuring demented criminal elements, on the one hand, and a convicted drug baron and phantom killers, on the other hand, and rather than calling for an official investigation, all the public got were charges from the government that the PNC was involved and that the Joint Services’ killing of alleged criminals should then be accepted as the official closure to the era of state-sanctioned lawlessness.
He needs to know how poorly the President and the PPP have performed in the last 17 years. They are a mere 11 years away from matching the PNC’s 28 years in power and yet, from all appearances, Guyana’s economy is moving at a tortoise pace when it should be making rabbit leaps given its potential. We have lots of natural resources, more than St Vincent and the Grenadines, yet we keep haemorrhaging our most precious resource – people – to other Caricom countries.
If PM Gonsalves seriously believes the region is suffering from a lack of quality leadership, hence the need to end term limits, then based on the above-stated facts he needs to know, he would have to conclude that this country is suffering from a lack of quality leadership skills and so the call for an end to term limits does not apply to Guyana. Meanwhile, I can only hope PM Gonsalves’s call is not based on his sympathy for so-called leftist governments, such as Guyana’s and that of the ousted Honduran President, just so that they can remain in power indefinitely and help revive socialism regionally and globally, because not all parties in government that say they are socialist or communist and care about the working class really care; most seem to care more about using ideology to pursue their partisan agendas that include ensuring they become entrenched in power indefinitely by tinkering with constitutions, and controlling legislatures, judiciaries and the military. It’s all about a ruling class lording it over the working class.
Caricom governments that 1) are doing well socio-economically, 2) are being run based on the rule of law, 3) support complete government accountability and transparency, and 4) hold scheduled local and national elections, are not likely to encounter demands from the populace for term limits for heads of government.
And in Guyana’s case, even though there is no groundswell of support for a Jagdeo third term or for an end to term limits in general, Guyanese know that term limits were the brainchild of politicians who used parliament to pass a law to that effect, so if the President is going to seek a third term he will resort to the PPP majority and the PNC minority in Parliament and not the people.
What can the people do? They have to press for elections in 2011 and end ethnic voting by picking Guyanese leaders based on a shared vision, a fiery passion, and a viable mission, because since neither the PPP nor PNC has delivered separately in the last half century, there is no way they can deliver as one. To PM Gonsalves and all others of his persuasion, Guyana cannot afford to abolish term limits under the present political circumstances.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
