Last week Dr Betrand Ramcharan in a feature article in this newspaper discussed a recent work by Dr Olufemi Taiwo on decolonisation. A key message of the book, he wrote, was that post-independence countries were responsible for shaping their own futures on the basis of respect for human dignity, rights, democracy, the rule of law and the application of reason.
Dr Taiwo, we are told, is of the view that in a quest for enlightenment and modernity, humanity has evolved these universal values which are applicable to all societies.
The thesis is far more complex than this, but in terms of its conclusions Dr Ramcharan says that it holds lessons for this country. He writes: “In Guyana, a theatre of the cold war with peoples of different origins, we needed to work assiduously at nation-building. Instead, we subverted the Independence Constitution, subverted elections and a referendum, and practised paramountcy of the party in all spheres of life, including the judiciary. We still have to heal from the consequences of these depravities.”
It is perhaps unfortunate that this could be read as if it only applied to the period when the PNC in some form was in office, but while it is true as far as it goes, the problem goes well beyond this. In theory both our major parties nowadays would say they subscribed to democracy and the rule of law, although what is meant by democracy tends to go no further than the national elections which occur every five years. It is indeed the case that for twenty-four years polls were rigged, and so by definition there was no rule of law. Then the PNCR and its associates blotted their copybook once again by attempting to cling to power illegally following the 2020 election, although eventually as a consequence of external pressure the legitimate winner was able to take office.
It is the height of irrationality that APNU still does not recognise the results and is wasting time and money in the courts. While it does not disavow democracy as a principle, it tries vainly to reconcile the reality and the theory by insisting that the election was manipulated if not subverted, impliedly by the PPP/C, thereby displacing the guilt, so to speak, onto the governing party. In our ethnically divided politics the African constituency on its own can never win a majority, and its response has been over the 25 years of PPP/C rule to assume the role of the victim, maintaining it is being consistently discriminated against. This is not to say that there is no such discrimination, it is simply to point out that the opposition has never compiled documentary evidence to advance its case, and uses the accusation primarily as a racial rallying cry for its supporters.
On the other side with the PPP still viewing itself as a casualty of PNC disreputable practices, something it has never managed to recover from, it has tended to behave as an opposition in office. It still functions as if it views APNU as its primary enemy, and on that basis has refused to engage it for most of the past two years. It holds a very slender majority of only one seat, not a ringing endorsement from the electorate, one would have thought, but that has not prevented it from operating as if the electorate had voted only for its candidates, and not those of any other party.
While the word ‘inclusion’ in the Constitution is bandied about merrily, it is not a concept which has any real meaning in our situation as far as the governments which have held power in the last thirty years are concerned. While a measure of devolution to local authorities was envisaged, the PPP/C has been delinquent about even holding local government elections. That apart, it is antipathetic towards any power source, however informal, which does not emanate from Freedom House. It wants to control everything, and is famous for its disparagement of critics, however rational, however reasonable.
Its watchword is exclusion, not inclusion for which it has neither the disposition nor the mechanisms to put into practice. Dr Ramcharan quotes Dr Taiwo as saying: “No government can have legitimacy unless it has been consented to by the governed – the principle of governance by consent”. But where the larger decisions affecting this society are concerned, the public has no opportunity or avenue whereby it can give its consent. Some of the legislation could potentially create one such avenue, but as the Natural Resource Fund Act shows, the government ensured that was closed off.
In our editorial yesterday we referred to President Irfaan Ali’s vision for the future and his declared path to “full growth potential”, and queried whether Guyanese had ever been consulted on that vision. We asked: “Do we want more office buildings in Georgetown with their demands on sewage and parking? Have we been asked our opinions on the wisdom of an industrial park at Wales, a deep water harbour in Berbice? A stadium? An oil refinery in Linden?” Is it really democracy to have major decisions which will transform the society in ways we could not have conceived even ten years ago imposed upon us without input from the people, or even the opposition?
And while that goes on the PPP/C has its own version of racial rallying cries. The week before last Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo accused the founding members of the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana of using the money they had received from government for the Afro-Guyanese community for their own personal benefit. This was denied by Mr Vincent Alexander who said the founders were not the beneficiaries of the not-for-profit company and that Mr Jagdeo had been provided documents to show how the money was spent.
This allegation of corruption without any specific evidence does the Vice President no credit, and in any case one would have thought he was not in a very secure position himself to make such an accusation. As such, it comes across as a slur with racial overtones. That said, the sums involved are quite substantial, and there should be no circumstances where government money is disbursed and there is no regular public audit to verify how it was spent. If, following an audit, problems became apparent, then that would be the time for public statements, not before.
But then that is the problem in Guyana; neither side in office has shown any enthusiasm for tackling corruption, and without that effort the rule of law, one of Dr Taiwo’s universal principles, will be seriously undermined. As far as our parties are concerned, corruption is something which only the other side is guilty of, and there has been great resistance to the establishment of autonomous bodies sufficiently well resourced to tackle it impartially in a meaningful way.
In fact autonomy is not a word which gives our politicians ease of mind, and to make sure they control bodies which are supposed to protect us, they remove any competent head of an independent bent, as they did in the case of the EPA. So now we have the EPA bounding in to Chinese Landing along with the GGMC to see the mining situation there, and they do not even bother to take mercury samples. Their excuse for not doing so was entirely spurious, as was pointed out by Mr Alfred Bhulai in a letter to this newspaper. Of course, it has to be admitted that where implementing the varied facets of the rule of law is concerned, it helps if our institutions are competently managed, an inevitable problem in a country which faces such a serious brain drain. As it is competent loyalists are not so plentiful.
Dr Ramcharan mentioned the judiciary, which in our fractious world has acted as the arbiter of our conflicts. It is without doubt critical to the implementation of the rule of law, but after years without a substantive Chancellor and Chief Justice, the President has studiously avoided making the necessary appointments by not calling in the Leader of the Opposition when that option was open to him. The latter’s agreement is required for these positions. It can only be assumed that he doesn’t like one or both acting officials, because he does not see them as sympathetic to his party. So much for impartial justice and the rule of law.
But it was the acting Chief Justice herself who recently lamented the failure to reconstitute the constitutional service commissions, calling the situation “highly unfortunate”. In the case of the Judicial Service Commission, for example, it had not been reconstituted since 2017 even though it was responsible for the appointment of magistrates and judges, and there was currently a serious shortage of judges. Once again, so much for the rule of law.
In a postscript to her judgment in a court case Chief Justice Roxane George also remarked on the tone of the engagements between Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton and Governance Minister Gail Teixeira, which was “confrontational” and left “much to be desired”. The way in which our parties behave towards each other and address one another at an individual level has been a problem for a long time. All that can be said is that in a complicated polity like ours, respect and negotiating skills are paramount if we are to make any political progress. Some of our leaders still have to learn these skills.
Our situation is not an easy one, but as long as our politicians continue to define their values in terms of their ethnic bases, progress towards building an adherence to the universal values discussed by Dr Ramcharan will be painfully slow.
