The silence of the coalition

In living memory, never have the shenanigans of one individual set the country so on edge. Never have so many offered their comments and advice. The issue involves Minister of State Joseph Harmon, who is under fire for indiscretions real and imagined.
The problems started when a newspaper revealed that Harmon had granted an advisory position to businessman Brian Tiwarie. People saw this as one step too far in the move to reconcile with those who had fostered political division in the country. It mattered not that Tiwarie had fallen out with his former friends and had formed a friendship with the ruling party.
Harmon then appeared to have conducted an indiscretion when he gave the impression that he had cemented a firm relationship with the Chinese logging company BaiShanLin. This company, in recent months, had been presented as one of the foreign investors raping the country.
The news media released information that BaiShanLin had consolidated its position as a timber giant by picking up timber concessions that had been owned by small loggers but which were lying idle. There is the view that BaiShanLin actually jump started Guyana’s timber industry which had lapsed into dormancy.
But the press saw the situation in another light. It saw the Chinese company as viciously exploiting the local resources and giving precious little in return. The belief was that very little royalty was paid and that some of the contractual arrangements were not being honoured.
Because of the hostility to BaiShanLin, Harmon’s relationship was seen as distrustful. Some suspected that there was bribery, because they could not see a critic suddenly becoming as one with his target of criticism.
Needless to say, when this became the talking point people expected answers; they expected sanction if some wrongdoing was entertained. There was no explanation and neither was there any sanction. People were initially heartened at the political response when President David Granger rescinded the advisor portfolio that Harmon had granted to Brian Tiwarie. But that was as far as the sanctioning of Harmon went.
Of course, in the run-up to the May 11,
2015 General Elections people had been fed a diet of transparency and a team that would brook nothing even remotely corrupt. The people, however, saw a measure of corruption in Harmon’s case, so they expected some form of sanction unless the case could be thoroughly explained.
To compound the issue is the fact that the government is a coalition and everyone knows that coalitions can be fractious. Their consolidation is tenuous at least. Not so this one.
The public sensed that all was not well with it when the junior partner, the Alliance for Change, proposed some discussion on the Harmon issue. It turned out that that was just a mere agenda item. The members of the Alliance for Change said that the discussions were not of national importance.
So this leaves one to wonder whether the entire government has been compromised by the Chinese timber giant. In his face-the-press last weekend, President Granger demonstrated some pique. He wanted to know if people were saying that he or the Prime Minister was corrupt.
Such a query could only be answered truthfully if answers are provided on the Harmon issue. We notice that the Alliance for Change has signaled that it now has no problem with Harmon and whatever he might have done. At a retreat, the party signaled that it thought that Harmon was too powerful and that he should be trimmed of some of his powers.
Twenty-four hours later, this is no longer the case. Perhaps the coalition has become a unified party and that the members have bonded around Harmon. If this is the case, then we may be seeing a side of coalition politics that we never knew existed—if we ignore the so-called coalition that the People’s Progressive Party formed with its Civic component.