I think that with the following statement by Mr. Ravi Dev, the discourse between us about the relevance of federalism to Guyana has come to an end. “Most recently, after Kenya experienced severe inter-ethnic violence following their 2007 elections, they instituted constitutional changes …. They divided the country into 47 `counties’ and constitutionally mandated at least 15 per cent of national revenue be sent directly to the counties, giving local leaders greater authority in managing resources. Each county will have a County Executive headed by a county governor elected directly by the people and a county assembly elected with representatives from wards within the county. …”
But before I proceed to explain why this is so, let me address some of Ravi’s interweaving concerns, all of which, for convenience, I have condensed in the following paragraph.
Mr. Dev finds my choice of the US as an example odd; he believes that I should have chosen an example of a federal state designed to deal with ethnic conflict. Further, he argues that I was wrong to claim that US federalism “was not conceived in connection with race relations.” According to him “everything that constituted the US system of government then and now has to do with race relations – specifically white-black race relations.
When the US issued its famous Declaration of Independence, Blacks were officially defined as only three-quarters a human being. … Henry would remember also that in the US expansion, each “territory” had to achieve a white majority before it qualified for “statehood”, which is why Puerto Rico has never become a “state”.
As I pointed out in my previous article on this subject, the founders of the US federal system were mainly racists who did not intend the freed African population to live among whites. They were either to be returned to Africa or expelled to some place of their own. As such, federalism was not conceived as a method of dealing with a permanent African population. However, the inherent dynamic of federalism, which tends towards state-centeredness has meant that historically it has worked against the African people.
In my view, choosing as my example a system that was designed to deal with a specific ethnic problem would not have allowed me such a blanket denunciation of an unchecked federal approach.
Indeed, the definition of Blacks referred to by Ravi (which was in fact three-fifths and not three-quarters) is a good example of the kind of tensions that exist in federal systems. Contrary to what many believe, the 1787 US Constitutional Convention determination that slaves were only three-fifths of a person did not result from some kind of philosophical discussion about their value as human beings. Ironically, it was the Southern states that supported slavery that wanted to count the slaves as whole persons, as this would work to their advantage for the purposes of tax distribution and the determination of members to the House of Representatives. It was those who were against slavery, recognizing the advantage this would give to the South, who argued that they should not be counted at all, and then a compromise of three-fifths was reached.
In terms of Puerto Rico and the part racism might have played in its not being a state of the federation, allow me to add another dimension. From the first request to join the federation – by Tennessee in 1796 – to the penultimate – Alaska in 1959 – the US Congress has dragged its feet on dealing with the request. So much so that Alaska had to follow almost the same route as Tennessee to gain statehood. The latter was forced to draft a state constitution, vote to join the federation, apply for statehood, and elect delegates to Congress. And even then, it had to make a demarche to Congress to demand that it take action, following which, Congress, uncertain how to respond to this unusual approach, finally agreed to make Tennessee the 16th state of the federation.
Furthermore, like other places, such as the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico is a self-governing geographical entity subject to US jurisdiction and sovereignty. Three times since 1967 Puerto Ricans have voted against becoming a state of the US and who can blame them? As I understand it, the territory enjoys US protection, etc. but pays no US taxes.
Kenya has some 41 ethnic groups and as Ravi has said, its 2010 constitution established 47 counties with clearly defined distribution of functions and resources between the national and county governments. The national government has some 35 major functions and (according to my reading) the counties are allocated 14 normal local government functions. These are too restrictive even for my understanding of radical devolution, and given his orientation, I am certain that Ravi would not object to their enhancement.
For example, apart from the normal national control over foreign, defence, international economic and trade policies, the central government has control over the relationship between religion and state and language policy; police services, including the use of the police services; labour standards; consumer protection; education policy, including standards, curricula, examinations, tertiary, higher, primary and special education; the promotion of sports and sports education; communications, including radio and television broadcasting; housing, health, agriculture and tourism policies; ancient and historical monuments of national importance, and public investment.
Within this general framework the counties have responsibility for agriculture, crop and animal husbandry; livestock sale yards; county abattoirs; county health services, including ambulance services, promotion of primary health care, cemeteries, funeral parlours and crematoria; refuse dumps and solid waste disposal; county transport; animal control; markets; county public works and services.
For a form of devolution in an ethnically divided democratic society such as ours to be acceptable to me, all that is needed are mechanisms – preferably at the regional level – to prevent regional authorities from discriminating and so giving rise to exclusion, balkanization and even to demands from minorities within states for further division. I have previously argued that federalism does not preclude the need for executive shared government at the central level. Here I go a bit further and argue that since our intent must be to reduce central government intervention in regional affairs to the minimum, avoid exclusion and foster intra-ethnic relations in the regions, shared governance arrangements are also necessary at the local level. In my view, then and only then would we see the kind of united ethnic regional politics that will make the natural state-centeredness of federalism/devolution harmless to our project of building a united Guyana.
