Dear Editor,
While I fully embrace the reality of ethnic identity and honour, as espoused in David Hinds’ letter in SN January 26, titled ‘After 23 years of an Indian Guyanese presidency, African Guyanese are being asked to vote for another,’ I rush to respond to his letter because I think Dr Hinds has badly misframed and under-analysed the APNU-AFC attempt to form an electoral alliance. In so accusing him, I am assuming his letter may not represent the totality of his view on the matter, but a concern within his overall acceptance of the need for a coalition.
First of all, on the so-called Nagamootoo factor, the Afro-Guyanese supporters of APNU are not being asked to vote for “another Indian Guyanese presidency,” as Dr Hinds puts in. As many themselves frame it, they are being asked to vote for a political alliance with the best chance to beat the PPP. They are being asked to vote for a new government in which their party will have, in any likely formulation, the largest role. They are being asked to vote for fair and just entitlement to state resources and opportunities. They are being asked to vote for ethnic security and respect far above what presently obtains. The coalition, one gets the impression, is not being seen in the context of the ethnicity of individual leaders but rather in the context of the parties. Should an agreement be reached, Guyanese may be more interested to examine the extent to which their individual parties can exercise power to represent and protect their interests. As such, an agreement should go beyond deciding on and announcing just the top two positions, but include some ministerial portfolios and outlooks on governance.
Secondly, should we follow Dr Hinds and keep matters down to the ethnicity of the presidential candidate, and should the AFC indeed have Mr Nagamootoo in mind, the 2011 election results did show that arguably he is that party’s most popular politician. This is therefore not a case of the AFC foisting a political pretender or lightweight on the coalition. Reasonable arguments based on electoral arithmetic could be made why he should (or should not) be the candidate. My sense is that many Afro-Guyanese understand this.
Further on this point, Dr Hinds asserts that the unspoken reasoning behind AFC’s promotion of Mr Nagamootoo is that Indo-Guyanese would not vote for an Afro-Guyanese, which explains why the AFC has not put up one of its African Guyanese leaders for the top spot. But could a supplementary, if not a supplanting, explanation be that Mr Nagamootoo is personally popular where it matters? The 8,500 vote swing to the AFC in Region 6 (and the corresponding drop in support for the PPP/C) in the 2011 election over that of 2006 could largely be explained by the Nagamootoo factor. And is this not the same AFC that put Afro-Guyanese Raphael Trotman as its presidential candidate in 2006 when it felt it could sweep up the thousands of disenchanted Afro-Guyanese PNC supporters in Georgetown and elsewhere? The evidence suggests that the AFC may be largely engaging in votes culling and counting.
Thirdly, David Hinds knows that individual parties and leaders in coalition/ power sharing arrangements are expected to pursue whatever are their own political, ideological, ethnic or territorial agendas. Coalition/power-sharing arrangements work with this assumption at the core. And, indeed, as Dr Hinds says in his letter we can’t get past ethnicity because in some regards we are asking people “to deny a major aspect of their collective identity out of which flows the construction of an important part of their day-to-day reality.”
Therefore, no one expects the Kurds, even within the Iraqi power-sharing government, to shelve their dream for Kurdish statehood and a greater homeland. No one expects that, since the 1994 power-sharing agreement in Northern Ireland, Sein Fein and the IRA have diluted their commitment to “ending partition and creating the conditions for unity and independence,” as the Sein Fein Leader Gerry Adams said only last year. Indeed, the world has long shifted from trying to erase or suppress ethnic consciousness and identity towards looking for political structures to manage the reality of ethnic competition and conflict.
An AFC that would wish to pursue an Indo-Guyanese agenda or a President Nagamootoo who is perceived to be on the side of Indo-Guyanese should not be a problem then in and of itself. As a counterbalance, the coalition design assumes that participating leaders and parties also share common national interests. Just as, if not more, critical, the design works on the principle and expectation that the several often-conflicting ethnic agendas within the coalition government can be managed through compromises and pre-set mechanisms. This argument holds just as true if APNU and Mr Granger were in charge of the coalition and perceived to be representing Afro-Guyanese interests.
If Dr Hinds’ fear is that a Nagamootoo presidency (or any other AFC Indo-Guyanese for that matter) equates to an Indo-Guyanese ethnic agenda, Dr Hinds must know that it makes a difference that this agenda is not being pursued within a one-party government (as is the case now with the PPP) but within a consensus-seeking, mutual-veto, multi-party executive. Or is Dr Hinds implying that difference is not significant?
My fourth point is a question. Is David Hinds opposed to any Indian presidency per se of the coalition? What if Rupert Roopnaraine becomes the candidate? What if the late Winston Murray had been there? What if we have a grand coalition of parties including the PPP (an idea Hinds and I have supported) and the PPP by virtue of its largest votes gets the presidency, would the idea no longer be valid?
As a fifth point, Hinds makes the case for equal sacrifice and says that with a Nagamootoo presidential candidacy, the Afro-Guyanese are being asked to make “a tremendous sacrifice”, while Indian Guyanese are not. Political (even household) arguments about equal sacrifice, equal pain or equal suffering bog us down in the pits of self-victimhood. Before long we are fighting each other over self-righteous claims about equal, greater or lesser sacrifice. A better (and practical) lens to view matters is whether each group perceives it will get fair and effective power and representation within any future coalition. That should be the central concern.
I would suggest further that without the reality and perception that the APNU/AFC coalition is all-inclusive, representing Afro-, Indo-, and Amerindian Guyanese, the coalition will fall flat on its face. Electoral success is only possible if all feel protected and respected. Mine is therefore not an argument for Nagamootoo or anyone. Mine is an argument for looking at this matter in the framework advocates of power-sharing have always understood and propagated.
All that said, to increase the chances of success, the APNU and AFC must try to reduce the possible fallout and disappointment among some supporters if their man does not get the top position. They should agree and announce, apart from the presidential and prime ministerial candidates, a few ministerial nominees (I can only hope that David Hinds’ ethnic concerns do not extend to key ministries, such as finance). In addition, the coalition partners should publish and publicly sign a ‘Contract with Guyana’ outlying broad commitments to good governance, local government, national representation and consensus.
Speaking personally, I am looking forward to a broad coalition with APNU and AFC at the core. Once I feel that the interests and concerns of the cross-section of Guyanese (ethnic groups, but also outlying regions, women, youths, etc) are meaningfully tabled and represented, I will give full support. I hope AFC supporters feel the same should APNU lead the coalition.
Yours faithfully,
Sherwood Lowe
