Last week President Irfaan Ali was holding forth on his favourite topic again: One Guyana. But if he thinks citizens are any clearer about what it involves than they were eighteen months ago when he elaborated on it in an address to Parliament, then he is not living in the same universe as the rest of us. The worst of it is he gives the impression that he himself is not too clear about what it involves either. It is just some utopian dream which has no real substance, and in the form in which he has presented it, cannot be translated into practical measures. The perception of fuzziness is reinforced by the fact that there is sometimes no correspondence between what the President says and what he does.
This is not to say that his intentions are not good; it is merely to observe that he seems to lack the clarity of mind needed for a full grasp of the local social-political scene. At the very least he appears out of touch with some of its realities. If that is not the case, then he would open himself to the accusation of never having divorced himself from the age-old PPP habit of total control, and that “oneness” is the cloak under which this is intended to find general acceptance.
Early last year the President told Parliament that his government was committed to putting patriotism before partisan politics. For too long, he said, Guyana had been held ransom to the ambitions of partisan politics and the narrowness of partisan ambition; “It is time to set those two imposters aside and to embrace in their place the virtuous cause of patriotic duty.” He then went on to tell his party’s MPs (the opposition boycotted the session) that his government’s “key word” was “oneness”, and its vision was “inclusion”.
In the first place, patriotism and partisan politics are not incompatible. There are a few instances where the sovereignty of the territory is involved and potentially partisan politics could interfere with ‘patriotic duty’, but for the most part, however partisan politicians might be, they will still be patriots. It cannot be the case, therefore, that in order to be patriotic someone has to ditch partisanship and accept the President’s ‘One Guyana’ concept in all its vagueness.
And then there is ‘inclusion’ which is cited as an objective in the Constitution, and is one of the standards by which the government has been judged by its critics. From the President’s remarks it seems that inclusion was to be achieved through “partnerships” with various bodies which he named as “representatives of the private sector, the trade unions, religious bodies and other civil society groups.” He also intended to “directly engage communities and community leaders across every village in building trust and deepening relationships to the benefit of the people of those communities.” `Last week he amended that list to include political parties, workers and social organisations, although he did not mention civil society groups.
President Ali had faced criticism earlier for excluding political parties, namely the opposition, even when he was constitutionally required to consult with them, while last year in our report we had noted that ‘partnerships’ had so far been with the diaspora and companies associated with the oil sector. “‘One Guyana’ is … a social contract of inclusion,” he was quoted as saying again last week, but inclusion if it has any meaning has to go further than the partnerships which his government has so far established.
The whole point about his statements to this newspaper recently was to insist that the ‘One Guyana’ initiative was not political, and he said it hurt him when he heard people linking politics with it. He told Stabroek News, “We are pushing for One Guyana in which all the people must benefit. Prosperity must come to every single home. If in building one Guyana, the whole country supports me, I’ll be very happy. But if in building one Guyana 10,000… persons do not support, then we have to continue to work to get those 10,000 persons to support One Guyana.”
He went on to say that it was not about one political party but meeting the development aspirations of all the people. “As a government, we have a responsibility for all the people—those who voted for us and those who did not vote for us because we all live in one Guyana,” he said.
It might be observed that all governments in democratic societies are committed to catering for everyone no matter whether they voted for them or not, although whether there is even-handedness in how they operate is another matter. But if One Guyana is nothing more than development goals and action to implement these, it makes it no different from the usual political undertakings. After outlining the development and investment the government was pursuing, he expressed the view, “if you’re not supporting One Guyana then you’re not supporting Guyana.”
This is naïveté. There is no society in the world where there will be absolute agreement on the goals which should be pursued, let alone on the means to achieve those goals. Only in North Korea would it be possible to get total unanimity on government operations. It is for this reason most democratic polities have mechanisms, in the first instance in the shape of parliaments, for debate. Democracy itself is a form of government intended to accommodate a lack of unity of outlook on the part of the populace. Our Consti-tution follows the pattern, and those arrangements by necessity are political in character.
President Ali said he understood that much of the criticism of his proposal was being fuelled by the politicians, and while he conceded that politicians had a role to play, it should never be to undermine the nation’s progress or block schemes intended to improve life for the people. If the argument is to bypass the opposition, say, when it does not agree with you on development, then that is a political move and has more to do with the approach of a one-party state than it does with a liberal democracy. It might be noted that even where Guyana’s constitutional arrangements leave room for discussion of an issue with the opposition in Parliament, the government has not always allowed debate, as when it refused to send the National Resource Fund Bill to Select Committee.
So are we to conclude that where constitutional requirements clash with what the government views as a One Guyana principle, the latter takes precedence? Is this why President Ali is refusing to make the necessary moves to appoint a Chancellor and Chief Justice, and has dallied so long about setting up the various service commissions? As suggested earlier, despite all the rhetoric about One Guyana, could it be that he really has not moved far from the PPP’s traditional modus operandi of total control? Genuine inclusion and consultation mean that first, you are prepared to listen to contrary views, second you are prepared to accept that you might not be right about everything, and third that you are prepared to make amendments to your view.
Perhaps the President and his party feel emboldened by the weakness and ineffectiveness of the opposition, but that does not mean that other non-political critics have been silent. And the approach to them has had nothing of inclusion or the ‘One Guyana’ about it; a whole phalanx of ministers of government have been detailed to abuse them in sometimes crude terms. And in many cases these were people with professional knowledge. In such circumstances why does the President think he will be taken seriously?
He has, of course, laid great stress on the help of the religious community, whom he has called “the custodians of morality” and who he thinks could assist people in appreciating their moral and social obligations. Like the society at large the religious community is varied, and in the area of social mores particularly, there is not necessarily a uniformity of views. To take the obvious example, the matter of decriminalising homosexuality will not produce a united response. In any event, whatever the President’s religious leanings, he has to recognise that this is a secular society which should be guided by human rights law. As such, some of that might not be in consonance with the beliefs of certain churches, and some decisions he might make in this regard will not necessarily receive universal approval across the faiths.
If President Ali really wants to go down in history as having achieved something fundamental for this country, and it will not be easy given its complexities, he should begin by a punctilious adherence to the Constitution. The matter of the judicial appointments in particular stands out. In addition, in a society where there will be so much oil money sloshing around which will encourage large-scale corruption in its wake, he has to recognise that a range of autonomous institutions are needed to monitor the actions of government and others at all levels. It is disturbing – and not, one would have thought in consonance with any notion of governmental integrity − to emasculate those which did exist, such as the EPA. It is another example of an apparent attempt to control an avenue of criticism.
The President appears to genuinely want all communities to benefit from development projects and handouts, but without institutional watchdogs he has no way of knowing what happens to these further down the line. There are many other areas in need of governmental attention, not least of all the police, which also require depoliticization before they can become effective. It may be that the whole One Guyana dream comes about because he doesn’t really control his party; he is not its General Secretary. As such it becomes something with which he alone is associated, and which he can pursue independent of Freedom House.
President Ali and his party should not be too complacent about the enfeebled PNCR; as they should have noticed the protests both on West Coast Berbice and East Coast Demerara did not have political origins. There are resentments underneath the surface which the One Guyana initiative will not assuage. What the society needs is fairness and the rule of law, and a genuine effort on the part of those in office to be inclusive.
Last year President Ali told Parliament a One Guyana commission was to be set up. There is no sign of it yet. Fortunately.
