In tandem with my article “Integrating One Guyana”, there were two letters that serendipitously alluded positively to the proposed federalist governance mechanism.
Mr Keith Bernard invoked the topic of “democracy” writ large and attempted to address the impracticality of its purest form, “direct democracy”. He noted, “For more practical options, Parliamentary and Federal Systems come to mind. The UK’s Parliamentary System and the US Federal System balance effective governance with representation, sharing power between national and regional authorities.” But he then went on to expand on his proposal, “Guyana might consider a Semi-Presidential System as an upgrade.”
Prof Andre Brandli also suggested the federal option, but the caption of his letter coyly avoided what evidently is the political “F” word:
“Guyana should look to Switzerland to learn how to improve democracy by radical constitutional reforms.” Switzerland is a paradigmatic FEDERAL state.
Chief Eric Phillips, head of the local Reparations Committee, however, raised the major objection over the decades from African Guyanese interlocutors: equating federalism with “partition”.
This mistaken assumption probably goes back to the early 1960s, when Eusi Kwayana (then Sydney King) proposed that if the PPP and PNC could not govern together, the country should be partitioned into three zones – one for Indians, one for Africans, and the third for all those who wanted to live together. Unfortunately, this objection is nothing more than a straw man, and a red herring to boot, to our federalist proposals. In federalism, the country remains one, but its constituent regions/counties /states are given more power over local issues.
Chief Phillips’s second concern flows from the first; to wit, if the present regions are transmuted into “states”, African Guyanese, who are a majority in Reg 4 and 10, would end up with far less land than our Indigenous Peoples, who dominate Reg 1,7,8,and 9; or Indian Guyanese in Reg 6, 2 and 3.
But, in a federal system, citizens can move at will from one to any other county /province as residents from, say, Wyoming, can move to NY in the USA or Demerara to Rupununi in Guyana.
In a federal governance structure, our central government would have “competencies” over national issues such as defence and foreign policy. There would be substantial autonomy to the separate states, which would guarantee that the inhabitants of each state have real power over their lives. Constitutionally protected competencies over police functions, local development, local taxation, and spending are only a few of the functions of the State Governments.
African Guyanese, for instance, would possess some executive power in Demerara, while the same would be true for Indian Guyanese in Berbice or Amerindian Guyanese in the Rupununi.
Under the present dispensation, Indigenous peoples would never be able to exercise real executive authority.
When the centre does not possess all power, the struggle to control the centre is not as intense. The competition would be distributed among the states as groups within attempt to control. National politics would not be a zero-sum game, since “losers” at the centre would still be guaranteed power at the state level.
Indian politicians, dominant, say, in Berbice or Essequibo, are more likely to see themselves as rivals for power at the centre. Additionally, within a state, since one ethnic group would have an overwhelming majority, intra-ethnic rivalry would be developed since no threat would be perceived to be coming from ‘out groups’, and there would be no pleas for ‘not splitting the vote’. In a situation where different interests would be represented at the centre, there would be incentives for cooperation to ensure the implementation of common programmes.
As the various states manoeuvre for the maximum benefit for their citizens, alliances would be shifted depending on the issue. This should create a fluidity and multi-polar balance, rather than our present bipolar confrontation, and so dissipate the conflict.
Additionally, the state government should be the most sensitive to the idiosyncrasies of its citizens and region. Local courts, for instance, would be most sympathetic to autochthonous (native) needs. The principle of subsidiarity holds that power should be exercised at the lowest possible level.
And supposedly reacting to my encouragement for Nigel Hughes to campaign in “Indian areas” and court cross-over votes, in contraposition to Chief David Hinds’s strictures against “slave catchers”, Chief Phillips claimed, “Ravi believes in Indian supremacy, and that Nigel Hughes is here to split the Indian vote so the PPP would lose.” What can one say?
