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By GHK Lall
Local Government Elections (LGE) enlighten all about how Guyana is, and where it stands. The PPP claimed a huge victory, but somebody fooled themselves. The PNC asserted that it whipped the challenger in its homes, it too should revisit the drawing board. But, most of all, what does it say, and where does it leave President Ali’s ‘One Guyana’ initiative. President Ali’s ‘One Guyana’ initiative is to be saluted. It is noble in ideal, appealing in its possibilities, what this country needs more than anything else. I say that it is, and never as in this time of great wealth. Close to three years after a bitter 2020 elections season, I reflect on Guyana’s LGE, the aftermath, and seek to reconcile such with the President’s One Guyana proclamation.
There is a place called Plaisance on the East Coast Demerara. It is mostly made up of Black Guyanese residents, which normally means a PNC supported area. Why were moves put into motion so swiftly after LGE were completed to move vendors and others from their roadside spaces, which have been occupied, in many instances, for years? Why a mere seven-day notice only? One couldn’t help recalling other places suffering the same fate. Like Mocha.
To their credit, senior people in the PPP Government made their way to Plaisance. It was a good first step. The second was the extension of the 7-day notice to effect removal of vendors alongside the Railway Line Embankment to six months. The third was Vice President Jagdeo’s instruction to the Minister of Public Works to meet with the affected vendors and determine from their own mouths, the impacts on their livelihood, what could be done to relocate them. These are good moves, and indicative of a government and leadership that is learning slowly from past errors. If it was part of the PPP’s gameplan for Vice President Jagdeo to ride into town on his white horse, like John Wayne, and fix the mess, it gives other communities ideas. Other PNC strongholds observe and appreciate that sufficient noise and pressure yields results. Indian areas watch, and say ‘if them, why not we, too?’ After all, we are the firstborns, the golden children.
However, another side of the Plaisance coin is the rage of many residents at how they are treated, disrespected by the PPP Government. It is now widely accepted that those who do not toe the PPP line, bow to the PPP way, will be singled out and degraded by the power of the government’s malice and vindictiveness. Those places known to cling to the PNC will be made to feel what their allegiance brings, what returns to expect. The many that came out in raging protest in the presence of a former President speaks too sharply of how One Guyana is received, where One Guyana is going, where One Guyana is not going, and how it is not making a palpable difference.
President Ali, for his own purposes, may fool himself in believing that he is making inroads, winning hearts with his suspect One Guyana mantra. He is entitled to do so. But when there are these anxieties and angers in Plaisance and Mocha and Victoria (and wherever else), Guyanese get a glimpse of where we really are, how far we are from being one of anything, on anything. For the benefit of the PPP Government, President Ali, Vice President Jagdeo, and whoever else in Guyana is willing to listen, we can only force feed so many. There is only so many who will take and be satisfied with $50,000 for themselves, when there is $50 million in works and economic activity that are urgently required in African Guyanese communities.
The least that the PPP Government can and should do is to embark on a program that evidences what sustains communities across Guyana, with a particular emphasis on African Guyanese places that sense, feel, and know they are being left behind, and deliberately so. This upends any possibility of long-term success, undermines the viability that may be (if genuine) in the One Guyana initiative.
From the mists if history, Burnham and his despised party card come back to haunt, given some of the actions and attitudes now sweeping across the Guyana landscape. The kabaka got away with some of his devastating practices for an extended period. That is, until he ran out of time. Nowadays, Guyanese in the city and everywhere hear about how the PPP Government and leadership cunningly and callously use $40,000 stipends for monthly jobs in the interior, coastlands, and other places in this country as a sword over the heads of those wanting to protest injustice, wrongdoing, or the pressure of circumstances. This can never be conducive to any form of One Guyana that would have enduring power. Rather, it reinforces all the seething sentiments of what I brand as the Wrong Guyana
When governance is about getting even with perceived enemies, through the whiplash of the power of the State, in what it can give versus what is withheld or withdrawn, then none can speak about One Guyana. We can only speak of a gravely wounded Guyana for it is lived with, and one that has to be brought back to life, time and again through last minute interventions and corrective actions. No arm of the government could, should, be so dismissive as to convince itself that a week’s notice is enough to uproot, unnerve, and deliver undue distress to citizens trying to make a simple, honest living. These are provocations that sabotage any true foundations that may (may) be present in One Guyana visions. As structures and poor people’s way of life are demolished, so also are any substances in One Guyana demolished. I respectfully urge President and Vice President to ponder these thoughts.
