Dear Editor,
The political parties and the presidential aspirants issuing from their midst seem to be now seriously gearing up for the coming general elections. The process would have brought out some of the best in our politics – an abundant and varied commentary, a declared desire by all candidates to continue our proud tradition of strong links between leaders and the people they represent, the pro-working class/labour-left orientation that remains central to our ideological worldview, and the abiding hope that a better future is possible.
We know by now that the process will sooner or later also throw to the fore the negatives in our tradition – the frank instrumentalisation of racial affinities, a rancorous obsession with picking open old sores and unbandaging old fears, the ignorant or shameless deployment, by some, of lie, legend, and myth in preparation for the triumph or defeat awaiting the contenders
So far, from this distance, the acrimony one expects has been muted and the main contest seems to have presented us with veterans from the PPP against veterans from the PNC as well as the experienced politicians from the AFC, to name the principal contenders.
The PNC, a party that has a strong history of ideological and political innovation, has registered another first as the only of the two majors to open the selection of the presidential candidate to a popular congressional vote. It offers many high quality candidates, some of whom, however, in the eyes of many, may be said to be carrying as baggage the biting goats of their former incarnations as ‘big ones’ in PNC governments. The PNC would also probably have been the first of the two majors to have a candidate visibly identifiable with the other race – had Winston Murray had been in the race. The PPP, one observes, also has a good slate of candidates, each in his own way responding to the requirements of its political culture.
The question of whom to choose may finally resolve itself for many PPP voters, as who really possesses the real reliquary of the late Dr Jagan (by which I refer to Christian practice in the Middle Ages to claim that this or that church or monastery held the true relic associated with Christ or a saint). In modern terms, the PPP needs to motivate its voters by a demonstration that its presidential candidate would come to perpetuate Dr Jagan’s simplicity, lack of interest in making money and his concern for the welfare of all.
This, to my mind is one of the points the winning candidate would have to sell. Evidently the PPP, to ensure its victory, would have considered the danger of voter apathy and would most likely have to go beyond sloganeering the PNC’s 28 years and appealing to the racial solidarity that the slogans call up and really signify. On the AFC side, Mr Ramjattan is a candidate that inspires confidence for his political courage and adherence to principle. Hence, the mumbo-jumbo of the “ethnic security dilemma” aside, the country could have found itself with Indian-Guyanese high quality presidential candidates from all three of the main parties. Certainly a first in the multi-racial Caribbean territories. Now, if, as we argued in an earlier piece, the parties are not to be judged primarily on ideological positions, but more on the culture of governance they bring to office, and, in a situation of ethnic difference, the paradigms of empowerment with which they approach the people, then the question of who is best fit to govern will really hang on the qualities of the man or woman who eventually leads. Let us remember that Dr Jagan, for all his abstemiousness, seemed impervious to warnings of growing corruption within the ranks or evidence of the racial favouritism which clung to his party at each opportunity it has had to govern. Then the matter goes beyond the personal qualities of the leader and resides in his or her ability to predict, and set in motion a mechanism to counter, the dysfunctions and embarrassing foolishness that now appear inevitable in the style and substance of governance we have developed. Mass-based parties such as we have inherited, are particularly vulnerable to the horrors of the enthusiastic cadre that, on the side, is making the extra dollar taking bribes, or the meek follower who morphs into a power-hungry little despot once anointed. Our failing as a political culture has almost uniquely lain in our weakness at monitoring or correcting this type of aberration. Can a new leadership offer new politics?
To the extent that new leadership cowers in the safe cocoon of ethnic politics, it would have put the country in the same holding mode it has for so long sufferred. A new method of distributing power has got to be imagined. And the courage to admit that the only way to subvert and surpass the paralysing racial suspicions is to come to a modus vivendi with the racial ‘Other’ that goes beyond the cosmetics of a black or Indian face in cabinet. Previous leaders have tried the ‘come join us’ appeal and have reaped nothing but the ridicule and incredulity of witnesses.
The thing is, there is no other way to solve this problem but by some form of power-sharing or coalition.
But will it be, unevenly yoked, two or three broken-down horses each pulling the draycart economy and state in a different direction?
Coalitions of any kind are not easy to manage. But there is a multitude of examples all over the world that it is a condition that is, or may be rendered, feasible. That the people need to be psychologically prepared is self-evident. That the politicians will look beyond their personal interests, or fears, and do the right thing, is not. Ultimately then, the choice before us later this year is not which party will win. Of the two I mean. But who, as candidate can offer to take us beyond the stalemate in our political development that characterises the current situation. And who will ensure that the theft, arrogance and prejudice that gave our politicians such a puerile image will not continue. Objectively, some candidates on the PPP side appear sensitive to the importance of the issue of improved and shared governance. Had Dr Jagan been alive he may have moved in this direction in some way. Mr Ramkarran, for example, has written that any evolution of the political order would be in keeping with Dr Jagan’s vision. And there again, the PNC may be said to be also capable of real political innovation for they have been saying the right things on the issue.
As we, a people, vote for our future, the choice has got to be made between the Old Politics and its never-ending failures, and the New, that we may leave as our legacy to the generations to come. The anti-colonial, anti-imperialist imperatives at one time central and necessary to our conception of the world, are past us. The anti-‘dictatorship’ discourse so urgent twenty years ago has lost its potency except as gloss and disguise for the infantile racism or lack of imagination of some who most enthusiastically perpetuate it. The ethno-racial anxieties that bedevilled us and have remained, will not, we know by now, disappear into the night of history unless we gather the will and force to come to constitutional or political solutions. Otherwise, the victory of any candidate will be no victory, only a continuation of the debilitating illusions that mark our kind of folly. It is heartening that many of our political leaders are ready to prepare us for the cure. These are the only people worthy of serious consideration as we reflect on our vote.
Yours faithfully,
Abu Bakr
