Even allowing that the unconscionable shooting and killing of protesters at Linden may have complicated matters for the government, how is it possible for a ruling party to concede so much on the major issues brought to the table by the other side but yet achieve so little? The Linden stakeholders demanded an independent investigation into the shooting with an international presence and for anyone found culpable to face the full brunt of the law: the government, relatively quickly, acceded to that demand. The stakeholders demanded that the electricity tariff increases be withdrawn but then later accepted that they could be suspended until a technical group including representatives of the stakeholders examine the issue and make recommendations. The government, which was the first to publicly propose the establishment of a technical group, also accepted that tariff increases be put on hold pending the group’s deliberations. The opposition said that Linden needs a development plan and necessary support if it is to develop and the regime agreed to this. It appears that the only major issue (if one can call it that) around which there has been no agreement is the demand for the resignation of Minister Clement Rohee before an investigation determines whether he has been guilty of some act of commission or omission important enough to warrant his resignation. Yet, at the time of writing (Sunday, 12th August) there appears no end may be in sight.
A few months ago, after President Donald Ramotar referred to negotiations as a “casino-type” activity, I made the following observation: “Negotiating will become more and more important as we go forward and it does not improve our knowledge, learning or capacity to participate for the president to be equating negotiation with “casino-type” operations. Secondly, the president spoke as if the government is the sole repository of what constitutes the public interest and this has serious implications for the consultation/negotiation process.”
This government has not adapted to the modern notion of governance, which demands that important stakeholders be seriously consulted about decisions that will affect their lives, and compounding this and notwithstanding all the evidence to the contrary, it continues to want to treat Guyana as a normal country, refusing to accept the entrenched nature of our racial/ethnic divide. As a result, it simply does not exhibit the capacity to deal with its political context in the nuanced fashion that our bi-communal nature requires. In the initial post-1992 euphoria the regime believed it could rule Guyana alone for it did not truly appreciate the implications of having to rule a divided society. However, now that it better understands the need to change in its governance track, it cannot do so without deep repercussions! In a future article I will consider this latter position and suggest that finding ways around it may well be the way to our salvation.
Generally, as I have previously indicated, the PPP/C has a jaundiced view of what modern governments can and should do. It believes that since it is the government, it has the right to rule in keeping with a crude understanding of applicable laws and conventions. Notwithstanding all the talk and perhaps even an intellectual acceptance of the right of people to protest, it is difficult for it to understand that a government’s responsibility to maintain order is circumscribed – it cannot do so by any means. For example, in democratic societies one should not deal with protesters in a fashion that will discourage future protest! This means that it is only in direst conditions and after all other methods have failed that force should be used against protesters.
In normal societies protests can more simply be neutralized because government action is usually viewed less particularistically. But in Guyana, where the ruling party is in power as a result of one community’s support, neutralisation is all but impossible and discouraging future protest by other communities is precisely what the regime wants to achieve! But, outside of the use of force, gaining compliance requires a more inclusive national management arrangement that has so far eluded the regime.
Applying this theory to the case of Linden, what the government should have done in the first place, it was subsequently forced to accept. Lindeners are mainly Africans and their political preference was made clear at the last elections. Unless the idea was to punish the community for voting for the opposition, which many now believe but I personally doubt, if the government understood the nature of its context, it should have held discussions with recognised community leaders before making any move to increase the electricity tariffs. Instead, as if out of the blue, it stated its intention to impose increases and the prime minister added fuel to the fire by saying that the increases were fair and not beyond the means of Lindeners.
The situation was made even worse when the government proceeded to play political games, which are preventing it from gaining from the concessions it is making. For example, rather than gaining the benefit from its concession to suspend the tariff increases, because it does not want to appear to have folded under pressure, it speaks of putting the increases “on hold!” Thus it gave the opposition the opportunity to place all kinds of interpretation on this formulation, as a result of which the PPP/C has received “neither corn nor husk!”
A further example of the government’s misreading of its context is inviting the Private Sector Commission to a negotiating session with the Linden stakeholders despite the fact that the PSC has little, if any, credibility with the African community. If it believed that the PSC could make an important contribution to the process, it should have known that the invitation should be negotiated before being issued!
In conditions where people are shot and killed by the police what is needed most is a caring face but the government keeps making concessions without taking any responsibility for what took place. Until quite recently, with an eye to political advantage, it kept blaming the parliamentary opposition for instigating the action in Linden although it saw quite clearly what happened to Mr. David Granger when he ventured into deal-making with it.
Finally, the entire nation is asking: where is the president? His office is perhaps the one institution that can provide the glue to cement the concessions his regime has been making. He has however corralled himself into not going to Linden until the barriers are removed and rather dropping leaflets as if Guyana is Syria! If these events have taught us anything, they must have made us acutely aware of the limitations of the PPP/C government and the need for us to find another form of governance.
