It never ceases to amaze the lengths to which this government is prepared to stretch the limits of hypocrisy. But there it was that President Ramotar in the company of his Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Attorney General this past week attended the 35th meeting of the Caricom Heads of Government in Antigua which ended with a detailed declaration on the international development agenda, placing human and social development at the centre. However, by denying Guyanese the right to elect their local government leaders and play a more active role in their communities, President Ramotar’s government is doing the exact opposite of making human and social development the centrepiece of their agenda.
The communique that the President subscribed to on Guyana’s behalf reaffirmed that “Human and Social Development has been established as the first pillar of the Caribbean Community” and it is studded with other references about governance. It stated that:
● that the development agenda must be premised on promoting the welfare and well-being of all people;
● that the development agenda should promote and mainstream sustainable development and the balanced integration of its three dimensions – economic, social and environmental – at all levels.
It ended with the charge “that all relevant stakeholders, such as governments, civil society, the private sector, and intergovernmental organisations, must be included in the process of determining and advancing the post 2015 development agenda to ensure more dynamic partnerships at all levels”. Undoubtedly partnerships at all levels would encompass local government.
Hopefully, the question about the absence of local government elections here might have been raised with President Ramotar by his colleague heads at the summit. Apparently, it will take the internationalizing of the denial of local government elections before the government comes to its senses.
There is no place to hide. The government has been called out on all of the flimsy excuses on why local government elections cannot be held. From Minister Whittaker to PPP General Secretary Rohee to the President himself, all of these inane excuses have been rubbished. It was the government’s defensiveness over the question of local government elections and its lack of a credible excuse that led to the disgraceful display by its acting Minister of Foreign Affairs at the US Ambassador’s reception on Thursday. Both Minister Manickchand in her address and later the Presidential advisor on governance Ms Teixeira sought to rehabilitate the canard that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) was not ready to hold local government elections despite official statements by GECOM to the contrary.
They also suggested that information on this matter should be obtained from some source other than the Chairman of GECOM. Very strange. They must be aware that the PPP government-nominated members of GECOM cannot on their own determine readiness for these elections. It would have to be a majority of the members of the Commission. Nevertheless, they would be well advised to have their members of GECOM go public with their concerns.
It needs no further restating. By refusing to hold local government elections when there is no impediment in the way, the PPP/C government is violating the constitution of the country. There is no tenable excuse and it is impossible to see how the government can continue withholding these elections. Further, by intimating that it would rather not call local government elections now because of the instability at the national level, the PPP/C is saying loudly and clearly that its need to hold onto executive power trumps the rights of hundreds of thousands of Guyanese to express their democratic choice.
In the meanwhile, the government in the form of the ministry of local government has proceeded aggressively with the takeover of local government bodies by ousting the extant councils and handpicking their replacements. Overseers have also been replaced and even decisions like the approval of budgets for neighbourhood democratic councils are left languishing for months at the ministry.
In a series on local government embarked upon recently by Stabroek News, the atrophying of the councils and the malaise that his gripped these communities is clear for all to see. After 20 years without democratic renewal, the art of operating a democratic body has been lost, the handpicked handmaidens of the state reign supreme without any reference to the people. Services are poor, infrastructure is in a mess and communities have been left without basic facilities. Local government today is a sham. It’s the PPP/C’s twisted version of local government.
This travesty must be brought to an end. For a party that lamented being shut out for so many years from government because of the PNC’s rigged elections, the PPP/C has created its own version of denial of democracy. Even if the methods are different, the result is the same.
