Dear Editor,
The PPP/C has sufficiently reminded us of the late President Desmond Hoyte’s resort to ‘kith and kin’ politics during the 1997 elections and that party’s more recent ‘slow fire, more fire’ outpourings. Of course, the PNC has its complaints, not least of which is President Jagdeo’s Babu John tirade against power-sharing, which they claim implied that if the opposition got into government they would give AK-47s to bandits. Are these just mischievous and wilful people running essentially evil organisations? No. They are simply political leaders mobilizing and galvanizing their constituencies in our bi-communal state.
I have argued before that our ethnic configuration and competitive democratic system naturally give rise to political mobilisation along ethnic lines. Since ethnic appeals have the potential to give politicians the prize of office, they are more or less inevitable. Indeed, as established politicians become moderate, radicals will quickly fill the gap, resulting in the former reverting to making periodic radical ethnic noises.
Nor can this tendency be prevented by the elimination or subversion of individuals or their real or perceived ethnic organisations. Every such effort would only lead to more alienation and disassociation and thus the need for more suppression and excesses. As we are seeing today, periods of calm intermix with periods of violence and unrest; such is the cycle of life in these bi-communal states. Therefore, if exhortations to be civil and good are a waste of time, and if suppression only leads to heightened alienation and the need for more repression, what is the answer?
The usual conclusion is that these societies have to be carefully assessed and managed, and both theory and experience indicate that sensible forms of executive power-sharing are unavoidable if they are to move forward. If this is so, it is amazing that Guyanese, who pride themselves on being relatively sensible and making valuable contributions in almost every country in the world, cannot successfully solve this fundamental difficulty, which is largely responsible for their scurrying from their homeland and making contributions yet still being subjected to abuses in far-off places!
Of course, not all problems are easily solvable and perhaps we are missing something. It is foolhardy to deny that the major political parties draw their support from the major ethnic blocks. Therefore, does our specific ethnic security context present difficulties that even shared governance, as normally conceived, cannot effectively solve?
For example, notwithstanding the belief that the PPP/C has increasingly been placing its supporters at strategic points in state institutions, Afro-Guyanese still are in the majority in the state bureaucracies, including the security forces. Assuming that some shared governance agreement is brokered with the major parties in parliament sharing executive, ministerial, etc, offices, even if the PPP/C is given the majority of ministers and senior executive positions in such an arrangement, where does that leave it in terms of actual control of the state? Is it not conceivable that given ethnic allegiances, the PPP/C could find itself severely disadvantaged; being in power but actually having little of it? Would those in the alliance indeed not be in a position to give AK-47s to whom they please? Why then should the PPP/C be interested in shared governance?
It is in this context that the PPP/C emphasis on “trust” becomes poignant. Of course, given the nature of our society, where almost every action can be viewed by some as an act of oppression, waiting to build trust is essentially a recipe for inaction. Is this why Mr Leon Suseran said that only the PPP can run this country? – “They are, like it or not, the best of the worst; the lesser of two evils. And we Guyanese, like it or not, must accept and live with that reality” (‘Mid-term crisis’ SN, August 1 ).
If what I have outlined above is substantially sound, unless it can be clearly demonstrated that there is little chance of the possible scenario outlined above materialising, the PPP/C is unlikely to come to the table voluntarily. This is a grave conclusion with serious implications. As an initial step in any attempt at compromise, we need to understand and attempt to resolve the concerns of the contending sides. I may be wrong, but the power-sharing proposals I have reviewed do not appear to have addressed this problem. Therefore, let me at this stage pose two questions: 1. Is the difficulty as presented above properly conceived? 2. If yes, what is the shared governance or other mechanisms to overcome it?
I am of the view that we must do something to make Guyana grow and develop, or more and more Guyanese will choose to live elsewhere rather than with the depressing “reality” that Mr Suseran has observed.
Yours faithfully,
Henry B Jeffrey
