COMMENTARY…

Reciprocity, not compromise

RALPH Ramkarran is apparently convinced that adopting compromise is the panacea to overcoming the political gridlock consuming the relationship between the opposition and Government, more specifically the PPP and APNU political parties.

He has quite correctly cited the several occasions, beginning in 1970, when the PPP resorted to compromising on positions, resulting in support for critical PNC measures and initiatives.

Apart from those times when, strategically, it suited the cause of the nation, the PPP’s resort to compromise with other opposition forces against the then autocratic rule of the PNC was conceding to the diktat of that party.

But seriously examining the word compromise, I find that it is ‘mutual concession usually involving a partial surrender of purposes or principles’, which is not exemplified on the occasions when the PPP conceded to blatant bullying by the PNC to avert disaster in the nation. In those instances, compromise was not the appropriate concessionary principle because there was nothing mutual, but the PPP was succumbing to threats of destabilization to the nation and/or its developmental processes.

In other words, the PNC never conceded anything, thereby rendering the use of the word ‘compromise’ misplaced.

What is currently taking place between APNU and the PPP/C Government over the failure, thus far, to pass the AMC/CFT Bill is the proclivity of APNU to resort to its normal bullyism in demanding certain concessions from President Donald Ramotar; which is, in effect, blackmailing the Government by holding the nation to ransom.

In adopting this attitude, APNU members have once again demonstrated their preparedness to turn their backs on being nationalistic in preference to achieving selfish personal gains. The record will show that, on the question of compromise, it was always the PPP that displayed magnanimity in conceding partial surrender of purposes or principles. There was never anything of mutual concession, as is implied in the use of the word ‘compromise’.

It is really an untenable position to expect the PPP to maintain ad-infinitum. It is quite absurd, I might add. But although totally committed to nationalism, the PPP finds the status quo currently overwhelming; which I think demands a sensible review if a stop is to be applied to the bullyism of the APNU. What do readers think thereof? Democracy cannot work with the APNU’s brand of ‘compromise’.

Mutuality pertains to reciprocity between both the PPP/C and APNU.

(By David De Groot)