Tomorrow Guyana goes to the polls in Local Government Elections (LGE). It is the first time in a quarter of a century that this is being done within the scheduled three-year interval. After a gap of 20 years, LGE was finally held in 1994, but the political parties agreed that new circumstances demanded extensive amendments to the Local Government Act before the next LGE was held.
However, it took another 17 years for the necessary bills to be passed by the National Assembly and assented to by the President. During that time, there were annual motions routinely passed in Parliament by all the parties for the LGE to be deferred for another year. Finally, in 2013, four bills were passed – the Local Government Commission Bill, the Fiscal Transfers Bill, the Municipal and District Councils Bill, and the Local Government (Amendment) Bill. The last one was not signed until the administration changed in 2015. The LGE of the following year and its aftermath, unfortunately, turned out to be a case of the mountain having laboured, produced only a mouse.
Even as the second LGE is nigh upon the nation, most of the changes which were 20 years in the making, still have not been implemented. The Fiscal Transfer Bill, for instance, has proven to be toothless in securing autonomy of spending by the Local Authorities, since the transfers have invariably been inexplicably delayed. The Local Government Commission, which was supposed to assume many of the powers exercised previously by the Communities Minister, is still not functional. The Minister, for instance, continues to make crucial appointments, even though the Commission is “responsible for employment, transfer, discipline and dismissal of staff and approval of remuneration, superannuation, training, leave and promotion of staff.”
Under cover of the old order still dominating the Local Government scene, the People’s National Congress (PNC)-led Government worked assiduously to counter the showing by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) at the 2016 LGE, where the latter had dominated by winning the popular vote over the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) and 43 of 55 Neighbourhood Democratic Councils. The latter, however, won six of the nine municipalities, compared to the PPP’s three. Communities Minister Ronald Bulkan spearheaded legislation which removed 16 constituencies from 14 Local Government Areas (LGAs) and created nine new LGAs and a new town, Mahdia.
The Opposition immediately declared that the moves were clearly intended to “gerrymander” the constituencies – all of which APNU had lost, tied, or not contested. For instance, in the municipality of Rose Hall, which the PPP won by one seat, the Government increased the number of constituencies from seven to eight. The Opposition took the matter to the court, but conceding that the Minister had the power to alter the boundaries of constituencies, were forced to contend that there were procedural defects in the implementation. This contention was rejected by the Judge.
So Guyana will enter the LGE in a highly polarised atmosphere. But if one were to go by the participation of the Disciplined Services, which voted last week, it appears the 2018 vote will not exceed the 47 per cent of the 2016 outing. Much of the ennui leading to this result – in the face of heavy mobilisation, since the face-off is clearly between the PNC and PPP, with the seeming demise of the AFC – stems from the promises of change at the Local Government level with the passage of the 2014 raft of legislation, but have never being fulfilled.
While the concept of “decentralised” development at the local level is theoretically sound, the actions by the Central Government to extend its political fight downwards and stymie the PPP-controlled LAAs through control of the purse strings and gerrymandering has made the locals cynical of the hype. The manoeuvrings by the PNC-Government at the centre – and its peripheralisation of even its coalition partners – does nothing to lessen that cynicism. Sadly, with both the demography and geography of Guyana demanding decentralised Government, such political short-sightedness will only end up retarding our development and exacerbating our divisions.
It is up to the citizens of this country to demand better.
