Dear Editor,
Reference is made to A. Archer’s letter, ‘How do thoughts about a people’s partnership translate into meaningful change?’ (SN, September 9).
Mr Archer’s letter is full of nitpicking and examples of argumentum ad hominem, reductio ad absurdum and argumentum ad nauseam.
Both the PPP and PNC are ethnic parties. Both follow an unwritten rule that their leader must be from a particular ethnic group and both derive a high percentage of their support from a single ethnic group. These practices do not augur well for the forging and development of a multiracial society.
For many years now I have called for the PNC to elect an Indian, and the PPP an African-Guyanese presidential candidate. Mr Archer asks: “How does such an act translate into meaningful change”? Well, the political dynamic of the society would change. A process would begin to take hold and work its way into the collective consciousness of the people of all races. The parties themselves would be perceived differently, not as racial but as multiracial parties. People’s cognition would begin to change, perceiving and thinking differently – not seeing race in everything but beginning to see the merits or demerits of the great issues of the day. And they will begin to vote not on the basis of ethnic loyalty for ethnic parties, but on the basis of issues, parties’ platforms and their self-interest.
Electing a leader from outside your traditional ethnic base is a bold and transformative step; it holds the potential to bring an end to the way we do ethnic politics in Guyana. Mr Corbin himself was quite unabashed in admitting that “all our politics since 1955 has been about race.”
A senior PNC leader asked me this question: “Mike, suppose we elect Murray (Indian Guyanese) to be the presidential candidate this year, and 5 or 10 years from now, we elect an African guy, wouldn’t the party once again be perceived as Afro-ethnic?” My answer is of course, no. Do peoples’ states of consciousness revert back to what they were 100 or 50 or 10 years ago? Would the people of South Africa go back to accepting apartheid, Americans segregation, Guyanese colonialism?
The parties themselves and the population will have matured and achieved a state I would call non-racial. If the Democratic Party (after having elected Obama) were to elect a white guy in the next election cycle, would the party and the society revert to its previous state? I think not; the US has become or is on its way to becoming a politically non-racial society. Voting on issues rather than race!
Shared governance – not the same as coalition government – would require an amendment to the constitution to spell out how the spoils of government would be shared among the component parties. It would also require consent from the ruling party (PPP), with which you want to share power. So Mr Archer telling me that WPA, PNC, ACDA are arguing or calling for shared governance is meaningless. They are flogging a dead horse.
Personally I am opposed to this thing called ‘shared governance.’ It is not democracy, Period. All Guyanese should commit themselves to working for the establishment of a genuine multiracial democracy. The idea is neither elusive, nor difficult. It begins with the first step: the transformation of the African-centred PNC and Indian-centred PPP into genuine multiracial parties.
“Tacuma Ogunseye and Eric Phillips have incessantly called for an end to the Westminster system,” writes Mr Archer. The problems in Guyana have nothing to do with the deficiencies of the Westminster model, and everything to do with excessive ethnic voting for ethnic parties.
The advocacy and frustration of Messrs Ogunseye and Phillips is the direct result of having to endure what is perceived as a four-term Indian-led government. If ethnic politics would end tomorrow, the PPP reign would also come to an end.
Mr Archer cites Lincoln Lewis: “It is unconstitutional to make race a selection criterion for a presidential candidate,” and this question deserves an answer. The PNC is an ethnic party. It receives votes mostly from the African population. To organize and campaign as an African party is very limiting. It is a dead end, running for academic reasons only, not to win. If the PNC, through the collective wisdom of its members were to adopt a new strategy and present itself as a genuine multiracial party with a new platform, this would be a strategic and transformative decision of the party, not a constitutional one. When the members of the Democratic Party voted Barack Obama, an African-American to be its leader, this was not a constitutional decision. It was just selecting who the members thought was the best candidate. If the PNC were to have an open primary tomorrow and they voted for Winston Murray, that’s the same thing as the Democratic Party voting for Obama.
In Guyana it would have been obvious that the only other big pool of votes is the Indian constituency. And, what is so hard about creating an image and a platform to make the PNC attractive and appealing to the Indians?
The many letters in the press written by A Archer, B Beniprasad Rahman and Lurlene Nestor can be characterized as a desire to retain the pure African character of the PNC, to resist change, to do battle with a faction led by Dr Van West Charles who is fighting to change the image and culture of the party to make it adapt to a new political and democratic environment. These individuals argue for “rule of law.” What rule of law? Van West-Charles has done an audit of the party election and demonstrated it was fraudulent.
Political platform and campaign strategies and leaders of parties change every election cycle. In Guyana the leader usually remains the same – until death. Once elected, the leader sees his office as an entitlement – until death. Is Mr Archer bothered that Mr Corbin is behaving as if he owns the office? Mr Corbin says he will not be the presidential candidate, so why doesn’t he call the party members together and ask them to elect a new leader? Isn’t that how it is done in a democratic culture and environment?
Just one final thought. Starting with the 1957 election, had Burnham and Jagan served no more than two terms as heads of their parties, and allowed the leadership to pass to another able leader of an alternative racial group, would ethnic voting have been as ingrained in our culture as it is today? The former British High Commissioner, Mr Fraser Wheeler made an innocent but factual statement about Guyana being a “racially-divided country.” Our leaders (President Jagdeo, Minister Rohee) began jumping on Wheeler and accusing the white man, slavery, British colonialism, etc, for racially-dividing our people. We did this to ourselves as a nation when we institutionalized and nurtured the ethnic parties, PPP and PNC and allowed them to carry on for almost 60 years. No sense piling on Wheeler for a truth-telling statement, Guyanese people have to summon the courage and wisdom to end the practice of ethnic politics as we know it.
Dr Van West-Charles is a remarkable man – visionary and courageous – he is leading the fight to transform one of the two ethnic parties in the land. If he wins this fight, the PNC and Guyana will never be the same again politically. It is time to move the country forward. Let change happen.
Yours faithfully,
Mike Persaud
