Dear Editor,
As a subjective assessment, Mr Tacuma Ogunseye’s letter, “APNU+AFC coalition not ideal manifestation of multi-racial politics but is the best nation has achieved to date” (SN: 25/10/19) is not an exaggeration but tells us of the substantial distance left to be travelled before we could arrive at a sensible form of governance. But some comments he made in response to my Future Notes column, “The WPA: the self-proclaimed apologist for the PNCR!” (SN: 16/10/2019) are, if not corrected, sufficiently disingenuous to make our distance to good governance even longer. I will address some of these.
He claimed that had I stated that the WPA was an apologist for the APNU+AFC government and not the PNCR, he would have agreed with me 100 per cent. Formalism is not my strong point and what is actual and what the WPA has repeatedly brought to our attention is that the PNCR is the overwhelmingly dominant partner in the coalition, and thus his objection lacks substance.
Secondly, Ogunseye claims that I have been among the detractors of the WPA since the coalition government came to office. Anyone who reads Future Notes would know that this is patently untrue. Historically, the WPA was one of the main supporters of shared governance (SG), but in government, it has become an apologist for the regime’s failure to fulfill its manifesto promise. Instead, without making any serious offer to the PPP/C, it sought to point to the apparent reluctance of that party to accept SG as the reason for the breaking of this vital promise. Once this became obvious, since historically the AFC has not been a strong supporter of SG, I did persistently criticise the WPA and the PNCR for reneging on their promise.
Thirdly, Ogunseye said that I dismissed his party as having no electoral or political relevance and then declared it dead. That the WPA is “dead” and should “rest in peace” are Ogunseye’s characterisations and not mine. Indeed, he quoted me as saying that “the WPA has over the years successfully projected itself as some kind of protector of the national political high-ground”: this has been a useful task that a party that is dead cannot perform. But I cannot believe that he wishes to contest my assertion that the WPA has been electorally inconsequential and remains so today.
Fourthly, having declared his party “dead” on my behalf, Ogunseye suggested that I would do better using my time to promote and consolidate my apparently diminishing influence in A New and United Guyana (ANUG), of which I am a founder member. One of the major problems in Guyana is that normal political activities and behaviour is prevalent in an abnormal situation. Thus most people, myself included, become involved in the political process to consolidate position and hold office without even being aware of the need to adjust themselves and the polity as a whole to negate this
abnormality, and I have been sufficiently long in the political process to not again fall victim to his approach.
The political system needs to change and the central problem facing Guyana today is the major political parties reneging on their promises to make SG reforms and ANUG was essentially formed to offer Guyanese this alternative at the polls. Thus, in a letter in April 2019, I stated that I will stand for no party or government position because “for me ANUG is an idea that is bigger than ANUG itself… My only intent has been the establishment of a political party dedicated to winning a sufficient number of seats to force the largely ethnic parties to establish a consensual shared governance regime without which this country will not unite and progress in a timely manner. As has been the case for some years, my task at this stage is to continue to help in driving this process against all comers.” (KN: 26/04/19).
As I have explained to my colleagues in ANUG, this position could obviously bring me into public conflict with ANUG, and democratic political arrangements frown upon one being in executive positions and publicly denouncing colleagues when a democratic vote, even if one that is wrong, goes against one. If Ogunseye had a greater commitment to the idea of shared governance, which is vital to the prosperity of Guyana, rather than supporting a specific party that has blatantly reneged on its core promise, this discourse would not have been taking place.
Fifthly, a multiracial constituency is not absent Ogunseye; it is relatively small but ANUG believes that it is disgusted with the present political bickering, willing to vote for the kind of change only ANUG offers and is sufficiently substantial to make that change happen. Soon all the political parties will be bombarding the populace with huge political manifestoes that promise everything but the vast majority of which would never be implemented. Again, ANUG is the only political party that has detailed a strategy of universal ethnic inclusion to arrive at better governance and a more peaceful and prosperous Guyana (Broad outline in Future Notes, SN: 30/01/19).
Sixthly, collective defense is an aspect of collective responsibility and the WPA has shouted so much about its powerlessness in the current coalition arrangement that it would be formalist to blame it for the actions of the PNCR and I cannot remember ever doing so. Dr David Hinds stated that, “It is clear to the WPA that its resonance within the African Guyanese constituency is contingent upon the party remaining in the Coalition” (and) one of his “most applauded lines at the (campaign) meetings urges constituents who are dissatisfied with the PNC and AFC to vote WPA.” I stated that this latter request only translates to telling most of his audience to do what they would do in any case. And with the Indian population in mind, I not unreasonably enquired “where is the WPA’s self-proclaimed multi-ethnic stance in all of this?” And no, Ogunseye, I am not “suggesting that the WPA’s presence in the APNU+AFC coalition compromised the party’s historical stance on multiracial politics.” It is not your party’s presence in the coalition but its extreme ethnic behaviour that appears to give second place to the concerns of other ethnicities that is of concern.
Seventhly, Ogunseye claims that I am an opportunist who has been a senior ally of the PPP/C for many years and that throughout that period, I was silent about the machinations of the regime and appeared not to have been aware of “the dominant ethnic paradigm.” It is not the awareness of Guyana’s ethnic dynamics that has been and still is, for some, the problem, but how to fix it. Among other writing of that period, in the section ‘The Political Way Forward’ in a internally circulated 2004 piece, ‘The Economics of Normal Politics’, which without my knowledge got into the public domain, I stated, “Normal politics rests upon the kind of nondestructive opportunism that recognises the possible changing of roles from government to opposition and vice versa. This is precisely why there needs to be the possibility of defeat. Indeed, in the absence of this precariousness it is all but impossible to significantly reduce corruption and other wrongdoing. It is also why dictatorships are prone to institutional corruption. What this means is that real opportunities to position an alternative government should be created and grasped. As such, an important element on the road to a normal environment is a creative opposition able to peacefully wrest power from the current regime.”
Later, in 2005, when the PNC opposition appeared to me clueless as to the direction of their demand for SG, focusing their activities around the National Assembly, I wrote a letter in SN stating that, “in my view, we will proceed with much more speed, if we all come to an agreement about the role and limits of the Westminster-type parliament. It is not, per se, a place for executive power-sharing of any sort. Indeed, such an attempt may well corrupt the very separation of powers that we seek. Those who are bent on executive power sharing must seek it differently.”
Eighthly, Ogunseye deliberately dissembled when he claimed that the APNU+AFC government is not as repressive as the PPP/C and that I portrayed it as being the worst government the country ever experienced. What I would say is that the present government is not confronted with the direct subversive political machinations the PPP/C had to face and thus has no reason to be similarly suppressive. The truth is that globally, this is how ethnic politics is played in our kind of societies, where suppression or democratic shared governance are the only real governance options.
I did not seek to reduce the WPA‘s traditional values to its “multi-ethnic” stance – that was merely the emphasis of the current discourse. If Dr Hinds had emphasised your party’s democratic values, I may have found it necessary to comment on its role in that sphere. Whether or not my conclusion would have been kinder is quite another story.
Yours faithfully,
Henry B Jeffrey
