The French and Germans have a single word – “La politique” and “politik”, respectively – that encompasses what is distinguished in the English language as “politics” and “policies”. But it is clear that our Opposition refuse to acknowledge the distinction offered as they continue to focus unrelentingly on the attainment and exercise of raw power. Politics, of course, involves the pursuit and retention of power – so you can decide ‘who gets what, when and how’. But less glamorously, policies imply rolling up one’s sleeves to craft principles or rules to achieve articulated goals.
The Opposition could care less about policies. They have, for instance, trenchantly criticised the government on ‘corruption”. But examining their pronouncements, all they do is attack individuals within the government or those they claim are close to the administration – “friends and family”. This approach is not getting the country anywhere – except to discourage men and women of calibre from entering public service. Where are the policies of the Opposition to deal with corruption?
We are not talking about simply resorting to SOCU handcuffing Ministers like Ashni Singh. We have in mind what Max Weber called “a slow boring of hard boards”: a willingness to linterrogate a criticised phenomenon and discern its causes before coming up with the broad principles to deal with it within an institutionalised framework. Returning to the vexed question of ‘corruption”, are there, for instance deeper systemic causes operating within the neoliberal order that has been imposed on our economic system since 1989?
Is it just coincidence that the same rules of ‘liberalisation” and ‘deregulation’ that were developed and applied in the ‘advanced’ economies have also led to questions of moral laxity there? Are markets the best arbiter of distributive justice, much less moral probity? Unless the Opposition are prepared to pose and then answer such questions that can lead to new and comprehensive policies, they are just spinning wheels. Or maybe worse: they are leading their supporters into believing there will be real change after their theatrics. When the latter discover that it is the ‘same ole,; same ole’ then frustration might lead explosions. This questioning just uled to a change of regime in the USA.
After the 2020 elections returned the PPP to office, the Opposition went on a “detour and frolic” – that is ignoring their duty to the people who voted for them to be their agent. Rather than critiquing the mandate of the new Executive headed by President Ali – that is supposed to craft such policies, the Opposition claimed they were ousted through the machinations of the US and western countries and their leader truculently refused to shake the president’s hand. They ignored the role of Caricom and the Commonwealth to also highlight their crude attempts at rigging the elections to retain power. Politics rather than policies- and gutter politics at that. Most insidiously for good governance, some in the Opposition leaders have condemned the government’s attempts to include the entire populace in their developmental thrust – which inevitably means including erstwhile Opposition supporters – as “slave catching”. Such pernicious attempts at keeping our country citizens in hermetically sealed and antagonistic enclaves must be condemned by all responsible Guyanese.
When the Opposition finally chose to introduce a suggested policy – a Universal Basic Income (UBI) – that would be funded from the Natural Resources Fund (NRF), they just could not resist playing politics rather than sticking to the policy. They dubbed it “the Buxton Proposal”: deliberately tying it to an Opposition stronghold that immediately reminds all an sundry of that partisan nexus. The notion of UBI has been floating around for decades, even though no country has adopted it in toto, with mostly NGO’s sharing out guaranteed small sums for a fixed number of years to villages mostly in Africa. The closest to a “national” deployment is Alaska, where their experience highlights the challenges when the funding runs out and citizens “entitlements” are cut.
But it makes clear why the Opposition refuse to focus on policies – the nuances would defang their politics.
