An admixture of our unique political context and nearly two decades of autocratic PPP/C rule have given rise to notions of how we should conduct political discourse that appear to me neither practical nor complete. I was reminded of this last Saturday, when I read a letter from former Minister of Local Government Norman Whittaker in which he sought to enunciate how the regional system should be managed and chide the present government for failing to observe the established rules and procedures.
The former minister was more-or-less spot on with his explanation of how the regional democratic system should work and made some rather scathing comments in relation to the present regime. For example, ‘The hostile, arrogant attitude of some REOs who have undoubtedly been led to believe that they have a monopoly of knowledge and information which they must share with the ruling party only is, in my view, one of the major contributing factors to the poor performance of several regional administrations and the resultant return of hundreds of millions of dollars budgeted to provide goods and services to the Guyanese people during 2015 but which they were denied.’
Quite apart from his not providing any evidence to support his critical assertions, there is a school of thought that simply dismisses those in the leadership of the PPP/C who indulge in this kind of critique of the current regime as hypocrites and political degenerates. From this standpoint, these people are without the moral authority to speak, particularly on matters political.
After all, is this not the same Mr. Whittaker who, sometimes against the wishes of the majority, made the concept of the IMC (Interim Management Committee) to manage local government an household word (‘Kwakwani:’ SN: 09/09/2012). And for an instance of Mr. Whittaker’s comments about political interference and objectivity, one need look no further than Stabroek News ‘Gov’t interference at ‘intolerable level’ in RDC work, says APNU’s Bulkan’ (SN: 10/11/2012).
But are these kinds of holistic dismissals of PPP/C interventions realistic? For a start, we live in something of a liberal democratic system and critique such as Mr. Whittaker’s is all the system allows. It appears to me that simply to dismiss the interventions as unworthy would be to give the rulers a free pass and that certainly cannot be good for a democratic society. Call them hypocrites if you wish, but certainly one is obliged to consider the gravamen of their contentions.
Furthermore, moral authority is not something objective that exists over and above how we contextualise our political interests, and the leadership of the PPP/C is speaking for half of the electorate, the vast majority of whom do not feel that it lacks moral authority. Moreover, in our context there might well be a more complicated dimension to this appeal to morality.
The political system in which we live and for which our constitutional rules and major laws were promulgated is patterned as a liberal democracy in which the separation of powers, regime change by way of competitive elections, open and free public discourse, etc. are central ingredients. At the end of the day, all of these are to be protected by a politically vigilant ‘people’. What happens if any or all of the above essential elements are subverted by – as in our case – the structure of ethnicity?
The PPP was illegally kept in the political wilderness by the PNC for nearly three decades and when it came to office in 1992, the PNC became associated with persistent political disturbances and bickering with the government up to about 2004. These confrontations were largely responsible for the ending of Ms. Janet Jagan’s presidency in 1999. All international observers certified that the PPP/C had fairly won the national elections, yet so far as the PPP/C and its supporters are concerned, it was being prevented from ruling by an obdurate PNC, determined to seize power in one way or another.
What was the moral thing to do in these circumstances? Where was the politically vigilant ‘people’ whose mandate is to protect the constitution and the PPP/C’s moral and democratic right to rule? The truth is, there was and still is no such ‘people’ in Guyana.
The PPP/C had two choices. If it was to govern sensibly in something of the liberal democratic mould, it had to risk sharing power with its arch-enemy, the PNC. Given the distribution of power in the state apparatus (army, police, public service) at the time, this was a huge political risk.
The other choice was to go for political dominance: the substantial diminution of the PNC and all its associated organisations. Unfortunately for Guyana, the PNC’s most obdurate opponent in the bowels of the PPP, Ms. Janet Jagan, was then very much in the forefront and her fall substantiated all her negative beliefs about the PNC. Looking back, the PPP came pretty close to achieving its goal, for by the opening of the second decade of this century it appeared all but unstoppable.
In this muddled, moral, political state, while most of the criticisms aimed at the PPP/C were sourced from the liberal democratic model, the leadership of the PPP/C was seeking to achieve political goals that were in contradiction to liberalism. Designed for a competitive democratic system, to a large extent our constitution and laws helped to construct how the PPP/C could have responded or did respond. It would be a massive error to not appreciate the structural deformations of our political process and simply view the leadership of that party as consisting of ad hoc moral political degenerates who accepted but failed to implement liberal rules. To it and many of its supporters liberalism had failed and had no moral or structural underpinnings in Guyana. Even as we approach the 50th anniversary of independence, the ‘people’ is not yet born.
But imperceptibly, the political system was changing in a manner that made the course the PPP/C took unsustainable. The ethnic balance was shifting and the attempt to establish political dominance created a permissive political/managerial environment that gave rise to all the hubris, corruption, etc. that ended in the PPP/C being where it is today.
Those now in government should note that five years is not a long time in politics and that unless they come to grasp the complexities of our political environment and institutionalise changes that could foster the birth of a vigilant ‘people’, the smiles will be wiped off some faces and the roller coaster of Guyanese politics will continue!
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
