There is an old saying that charity begins at home. President Irfaan Ali would do well to remember it. Last Thursday, Ali stood before the United Nations and called for a Security Council that reflects the “geopolitical realities of the 21st century.” He demanded greater inclusion and representation in the international system while the very constitutional principle he invoked in spirit remains ignored by him at home.
Guyana’s Constitution already demands the very inclusion President Irfaan Ali is calling on the world to embrace. Article 13 declares that “the principal objective of the political system of the State is to establish an inclusionary democracy by providing increasing opportunities for citizens and their organisations to participate in the management and decision-making processes of the State.”
Before Ali can lecture the world about inclusion, representation and participation, he must first practise what he preaches at home.
While the President is right that the international system has changed dramatically since 1945, his argument becomes hypocritical when he demands that international institutions dismantle outdated concentrations of power while questions persist about the extent to which our institutions, under his leadership, provide meaningful space for citizens and their organisations to participate in the management and decision-making processes of the State.
Guyana does not need a constitutional amendment to implement the principle of inclusion. It already has one, which is practised in the breach.
I have long argued that democracy does not start or end at the ballot, but moreso with what happens in the day-to-day governance of society, whether rights are upheld universally, and all are subject to the rule of law.
A Government committed to the constitutional system of inclusion should not treat the parliamentary Opposition forces as non-existent between elections, and only consider them worthy of being summoned on matters of national import, such as the border controversy, but not engage them on daily aspects of governance where their involvement is required.
Neither has the Ali regime allowed the constitutional space for trade unions, professional bodies, civil society, local authorities and other organisations to participate meaningfully in decisions affecting the country and the people’s well-being.
If representation matters at the UN, it must matter in Guyana between elections. If smaller and less powerful nations deserve protection from domination by larger powers, citizens and institutions within smaller nations deserve protection from domination by their own governments.
There is another dimension Ali’s UN formulation leaves untouched: whether citizens and independent organisations feel sufficiently secure to disagree with the government without risking dire economic or institutional consequences. This is where the true meaning of democracy is tested.
Trade unions, for instance, have historically provided an independent counterweight to government and employers, but clear efforts are being made to shut the constitutional body out of the body politic, particularly those seen as independent of PPP control.
Lest we forget, it was the trade union that initiated the fight for one man, one vote and internal self-government, and laid the developmental foundation of post-independent Guyana.
To be an independent trade union or unionist today can spell economic and social marginalisation for the organisation or the individual, even as Ali commands the international spotlight to push for inclusion, respect for diversity and the right to self-determination for small or less powerful nation-states, while his government moves aggressively to diminish that very space at home.
Government continues to flout the constitutional right to collective bargaining and freedom of association.
The issue in Guyana is whether workers, businesses, professionals, media organisations or ordinary citizens feel secure that challenging political power would not jeopardise employment, contracts, licences, access to opportunities or institutional relationships.
This has become a country where, when people speak freely, they have to fear economic reprisal. What sort of democracy is this?
Further, on the matter of governance, the Constitution expressly recognises local government by freely elected representatives as “an integral part of the democratic organisation of the State.” That means the management of the people’s business does not start or stop at the National Assembly or Central Government.
Local authorities need meaningful administrative and financial capacity to govern their communities, as outlined in Articles 76 and 77 of the Constitution. This is not happening, and it becomes particularly consequential when local political majorities differ from the governing party nationally. An elected council that cannot effectively execute its mandate without central discretion is being structurally hindered from delivering for its communities.
This exposes another dimension of Ali’s contradiction—the deliberate efforts at home at stifling independent authority and the right to self-determination while, on the international platform, he calls for an end to it.
How can Ali expect the world to see him as sincere in his call that geopolitical legitimacy requires institutions to reflect contemporary realities rather than preserve historical concentrations of power when he has no leg to stand on and cannot show how he has effectively applied that principle at home?
If concentrated power is a problem at the Security Council, it should also be examined when political power dominates the institutions through which citizens participate in national life. If transparency and inclusion are necessary to legitimise international power, they are equally necessary to legitimise domestic power.
Ali cannot, with any credibility, ask the world to modernise its architecture while Guyana is still struggling, under his leadership, to give full practical effect to an inclusionary-democracy principle written into its Constitution more than two decades ago.
