Guyana needs new strategic vision and focused leadership

By Moses V. Nagamootoo, AFC Vice-Chairman On January 17, 2003, I published an article under the caption above. The landscape that I described in that

Moses Nagamootoo

article has not changed much, except that Guyana is facing a worse crisis than in 2003. The prorogation and resulting dissolution of parliament by President Donald Ramotar to avoid a defeat of his corrupt, unpopular, minority PPP government, would become the proverbial match that could ignite new political fires. Then, I said that the country was in “turbulence”. Today, we are in the eye of a political storm. How we could get out and even go past this situation, was the subject of the impugned article, which then President Bharrat Jagdeo described as “trash”, and for which Stalinist elements in the PPP wanted to lynch me for “anti-party” views. Slightly abridged, I wish to share it, once again:- RACE & POLITICS In 1992 the PNC was defeated. The chain of stolen power was broken. Most Guyanese were euphoric when Cheddi Jagan became President. He recognised that a change of government, important for democracy, was only skin surgery. He wanted social transformation, as the real issues were closer to the bone. Those were, and have been while the PNC held unbroken power: fear of racial domination, racial insecurity and racial discrimination. I can still see him in my mind’s eye proclaiming on an historic May Day at National Park, “there would be no discrimination, no victimisation, no recrimination”. That did not deter the loser PNC from upping the racial suspicions, accusing the new government of “ethnic cleansing” of its African supporters. Then it claimed that Africans were “marginalised”. I have no doubt that those ideas of racial subjugation formed the ideology of what started after the PPP came to power as a PNC proxy fight from its African support bases, at first in places like Vergenoegen and Georgetown, and later in Buxton. COALITION BUILDING But while Dr. Jagan lived, a lid was placed on open ethnic insurgency. His message of “racial/class/ideological balance”, “inclusion and partnership” and national reconciliation was neutralising broader sectors of the society. This he had worked for since the split in the PPP. And as the PNC grew unpopular, he had held the hope for a significant crossover of Afro-Guyanese to his party. He practiced consensus and coalition building at all levels. He embraced the finest amongst the Africans, notably the late Walter Rodney, and courted them actively to his side. He canvassed for inter-racial electoral combinations, proposing running mates such as Dr. Clive Thomas, Mr. Ashton Chase and Mr. Samuel Hinds. He was unabashedly bold when he suggested Dr. Roger Luncheon as a compromise presidential candidate for the 1992 elections. In an abortive bid, I similarly advanced his daring proposal for the 1997 elections to deny the PNC in that election of its race card against the PPP. [One extremist element in the PPP leadership chopped down my proposal with one, disdainful, racist cutlass: “we na ready fuh a blackmaan yet!” In a political sense, both the proposer and the proposed were destroyed]. After the 1994 local government elections, Dr. Jagan devised what was described as the “Mandela Formula” of power sharing at the municipal level. After his death, those brilliant moments faded… PRESSURE POLITICS Statesmanship in Guyana since 1997, alternated with savagery. We have witnessed the daily diet of racism, the chronic hatred and, of course, fires and crimes. The Herdmanston Agreement and the St. Lucia Accord were palliatives not solutions. They gave us time but did not take us over the line of distrust/hostility to tolerance/engagement, much less on the road to reconciliation. The much vaunted but failed dialogue between President Jagdeo and Mr. Hoyte became a fragile fence nailed together in a high wind of hatred. Past suspicions overshadowed the talks. No one wanted to be accused of giving an inch more than is prudent, to appear weak or, to be guilty of, to use the treacherous word, “appeasement”. In the end when Hoyte thought that he was empty-handed, he left the table. Dialogue and negotiation had given the people hope. Now, after the failure, it may not be unkind if history were to write about our leaders as people who had missed a chance. The time has come when we have to let go of the past. It is the past that is intruding in the present and blocking the way to the future. But I know that there are people around who cannot let the past go. The past wants revenge, like the ghost of Hamlet’s father. SHARED GOVERNANCE Take for example the issue of “shared governance” or whatever other labels it is given. I am amazed by the summary disposal of this rather old idea in pro-PPP letters that fall short of context or timing or analysis of the mood of people. Writers are ready to say that it has not worked in the past, and it would not work in the future. No attempt is made to analyse the scope and limitation of the coalition idea in the context of the new body of constitutional changes. No attention is given to the need in specific conflict situations to allow an opponent to debate changes rather than try to wrest them by other means. It is plain, blunt dismissal of it. It’s always about the past, and about selling out. Power and its manipulation seem to be a life and death game. For some, power has a front door and a back door. Some reason that the PPP can always come in the front door through periodic elections. It has the electoral arithmetic to ensure this. So, it is being advised to shut the back door lest the PNC sneak into the powerhouse. No one bothers over such trivia as to what happens if someone desperate enough to get in, decides to break the whole house down! In our common Guyana home there must be room for everyone. There must be a place for Indians and Africans, and for all other Guyanese ethnic groupings. We have to deal with our present by building structures for the future. I believe in the power of the future to over-ride the past. The future wants us to bury our failures, our burnt hair and “singed” minds. If we can put the past behind where it belongs, we can re-image our country. We can begin to see not its divisions, its hatred and its poverty but its potential for unity and the prosperity of our people in the future. REDEFINE DEMOCRACY I believe that though democracy was restored in 1992, we have – since the prorogation of Parliament – lost whatever claim we had to being a democratic state. Our democracy must have room, in the context of our ethnic-based voting pattern and political loyalties, for both winner and loser. This makes it an inclusive, national democracy that is, at the same time, participatory and revolutionary. The essence of our democracy must be bi-partisan, and the approach to major problems must be united and national. Plainly put, it requires maximum cooperation between the Parliamentary political parties. It must not be a piecemeal measure or an opportunistic excursion. It must be an institutional arrangement that brings the parties together and working on a mutual agenda. The time is now for us to bring an end to our intransigence. We need new thinking and courage to go forward. Guyana’s greatest test is that of leadership. It is the leadership of all the Parliamentary parties sharing a common vision for the good of Guyana. (First published on 17th January, 2003 in Guyana Chronicle)