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I found the quarrel between the People’s Progressive party (PPP) and the People’s National Congress (PNC) over whether Cheddi Jagan or Forbes Burnham should rightfully be designated ‘Father’ of a nation that does not exist hilarious! No serious observer could possibly claim that Guyana is even close to becoming a nation. Indeed, after about two dozen years in the upper echelons of the ruling PPP, of which he was president for twelve, Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo (VP), could not have said it better: ‘In fact, we are going farther apart’ (SN: 24/03/2023)!
Nations consists of a groups of people with a high degree of ‘fellow feeling’, and notwithstanding its persistent call for national unity, when it comes to efforts that could contribute to nation building, the PPP is not consensual but formalistic and partial. Happily its leader has not deluded himself but is only opportunistically trying to convince, largely his traditional ethnic supporters, that formal factional closure, e.g. by way of the 2020 elections and Walter Rodney inquiries, the nonsense talk about a truth and reconciliation commission and now the declaration that Cheddi Jagan is the Father of the Nation, means such matters have been successfully completed, when in fact they have contributed to widening the ethnic divide the VP so wisely observed.
Guyana is best viewed as a country of two, or better still, three coexisting nations and a good case can be made for either Cheddi Jagan or Forbes Burnham being the ‘Father of the Nation.’ Although Cheddi Jagan accepted that what he called his ‘youthful (ideological) exuberance’ lumbered the country with a perennial border dispute and ironically by extension, the very Burnham dictatorship his supports love to pillory, in my assessment it is precisely his youthful audacity and ideological tenacity that places him among the best. After all, some say only utopia can save us, and thus one hopes that in the interest of real national unity the protagonists can find some compromise. Indeed, in this age of same sex marriage, artificial insemination, etc., maybe they can for once get with the times and consider the designation ‘Fathers of the Nation’.
As he was acknowledging that six decades after independence Guyana is becoming more and more ethnically divided, the VP criticised shared-governance (SG), the only viable way forward, and essentially promised more ethnic division! ‘Shared governance at the executive level would come if Guyana’s citizenry calls for it during the constitutional reform process but at the moment the PPP/C cannot trust the main opposition on supporting its holistic developmental policies (Ibid).’
There is much that is wrong about the VP’s entire presentation, but the above snippet contains a foundational misconception. It appears that somehow the VP believes that SG will be established to implement PPP/C ‘holistic development policies’. By definition, a party is only representative of one part of the population but the government must seek to democratically govern the entire citizenry. Government policies should consider and reflect the interest of the entire country: even those who voted against it. That is why Cheddi Jagan agreed that any bill over six pages should in principle go to a third – committee stage – reading of the National Assembly to extract a national consensus from partial competitive party positions.
No democratic party should expect national acceptance or proceed with the dogmatic implementation of its manifesto, but unfortunately this is the modus operandi of the PPP as it tries to camouflage its drive for ethnic dominance. But what really makes SG inevitable in divided societies such as Guyana is that even if a PPP or PNC government was evenhanded, the competitive political environment of the Westminster winner-take-all system encourages the competitors to paint each other as totally the opposite. A nation cannot grow in this kind of political soil.
The SG environment is constitutionally structured to eliminate this life and death struggle for government by providing ethnic communities with a place at the executive level and other opportunities to protect their interest. Unlike the PPP, which is trying to reduce African ethnic voting under the guise of trying to stop racism, in SG arrangements inclusive democratic arrangements are established to facilitate ethnic voting and good governance (‘Guyana’s ‘troubles’ and the Good Friday Agreement:’ SN: 18/04/2018). What is required most here is the capacity to compromise, but that died with Cheddi Jagan as the PPP proceeded with its scheme of ethnic/political domination. A recent Stabroek News editorial provided an insight into the present PPP’s behaviour, even if the solution proffered in the final sentence is wishful thinking.
‘The executive presidency affords the government and by association – the ruling party – unrivalled and largely unchecked powers. The legislature in the majoritarian Westminster model is a mirror image of the executive …. The judiciary can rein in excesses … but it is easily hamstrung by the executive … the Judicial Service Commission has not been renewed by two governments despite umpteen promises. ……. The government must begin to show that in the interest of good and accountable governance it is prepared to circumscribe and temper its broad powers particularly as it relates to the empowering of watchdog bodies and related institutions’ (SN: 27/03/2023).
The regime clothes its mal-intention with objections around notions of trust and delay. Trust is an aspect of all social relationships because almost every action requires one to have a level belief, faith or confidence in others. For example, as drivers we have some high level of faith that that since serious consequences can result from accidents, other drivers place a similar value on their lives and equipment and so will act sensibly. As stated above, the SG environment also contains a collective self-interested regime and consequences.
Democratic delay only seems critical to those socialized in the Westminster tradition. It takes on average 150 days after elections for many of the European countries in the top twenty of the most happy and best countries in which to live to form a government after elections. Indeed, Belgium has the record for taking 589 days in 2011 and as recently as 2021, the Netherlands took 225 days. Would it not have been preferable for the PPP to have been in a position to prevent the PNC from unilaterally dismissing 7,000 sugar workers? Is it not preferable to delay than, as noted above, have the PPP severely undermine the democratic process and any chance of Guyana ever growing fellow-feelings and becoming a nation?
