These days, the political landscape has become even more polluted by an atmosphere of jingoism and incivility that stretches from the acrimonious discourses in the National Assembly to the acerbic day to day exchanges across the political lines that play out in the media. As if the Parliament has not already drawn conspicuous attention to itself over the past year or so the political cat-sparring that is preceding the 2013 budget, now exactly a week away, may well spill over into fresh waves of invective and ugly political fallout.
Recently, attention was drawn to President Ramotar’s speech at the Babu John Memorial for the Jagans with commentators making the point that, like his predecessor, Mr. Ramotar chose to don the cloak of a disciple of the contemporary, jingoistic PPP rather than the President of all of Guyana, a decision that afforded him all of the elbow room to verbally decimate anything that remotely resembles an enemy of the ruling party. Interestingly, while the atmosphere at Babu John might suggest that the occasion has come to be regarded by the PPP as an occasion for Dr. Jagan’s political successors to vent their spleen on the Party’s enemies, its one-time presidential candidate, Mr Ralph Ramkarran sees the style that currently obtains at Babu John as contributing to “the dismantling of Cheddi Jagan’s legacy of reasoned debate as a method of convincing opponents and educating supporters.”
Not that reasoned debate is, these days, favoured by the ruling party as a means of communication. Instead, it often appears driven by an incurable intolerance of public criticism hence its assertion of a posture of combativeness from which it always appears positioned to strike back.
The recent Marriott Hotel issue is a case in point. What else could the government reasonably expect of the building sector, the labour movement and its political opponents if it were to transpire without warning that a major construction project in Guyana would go ahead without local workers being employed? Was the fact that an agreement on an all-Chinese work force been struck with the contractors – in circumstances where local workers would have been anticipating jobs – not more than sufficient reason to provide local stakeholders with advance notice that the Marriott project would not employ local builders. And after the protest had begun to unfold both President Ramotar and Labour Minister Gopaul sought to suggest that it was political in circumstances where it was clear that the administration had brought the whole thing upon itself. In the case of the Marriott it really was a matter of an appalling lack of sensitivity on the part of the government.
What is disturbing is the fact that these frequent squalls have not only become par for the political course but have been rendered worse by the outcome of the opposition’s one-seat majority in the National Assembly, that is, the demonstrable difficulty which the ruling party faces in coping with the fact that it can no longer have its own way in the Parliament. We now know, for example, that the two Bills passed by the combined APNU/AFC majority opposition in the National Assembly are caught up in what appears to be an attempt to reduce the parliamentary process to a party political tug-o-war. That, if it persists, will inevitably intensify the prevailing political gridlock and, eventually, bring our politics into disrepute.
A little more than a year ago much of the country had immersed itself in the view that the altered arithmetic in the National Assembly might be just the thing to bring meaningful change to the national political culture. With the passage of time what we have discovered is that the government may be altogether unprepared to endure the political exertions that derive from its loss of control of the legislature; so that rather than revel in what we had been led to believe would be a condition of genuine parliamentary democracy, we hear persistent rumours of ‘snap elections,’ the desired outcome of which is to seek to return total control of the legislature to the ruling party.
In just over a year the political atmosphere has been further soured by the sheer weight of the political acrimony that has accumulated since the November 2011 general elections. The government of President Ramotar has simply been unable – some might even suggest unwilling – to seek to create a more pleasing political landscape. It is a failing that could come back to haunt Mr. Ramotar and his administration in the period that is left of his presidency.
