The US State Department has just issued its latest annual Human Rights Report that is based on data from 2015. As such, it evaluated the record of the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition Government over the last six months of the year. With the new Government insisting its raison d’être was “change”, the Report offers a framework to examine what changes were instituted in this fundamental aspect of national governance.
One of the most strident criticisms by the present Government when in Opposition against its predecessor was its draconian control over the State media. Very little coverage was afforded to the Opposition and the bulk amounted to simply providing public relations for the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government. APNU/AFC’s Presidential Candidate David Granger explicitly declared there would be no place for State ownership of the media in his Administration.
However, the US Human Rights Report, Section 2. Respect for Civil Liberties, specifically referring to “Freedom of Speech and Press”, points out:
“Censorship or Content Restrictions: In August, the Prime Minister issued a directive that all headlines in the State-owned print media be first scrutinised and approved by his office before they are published. The directive was a response to a headline criticising the Government. The Prime Minister also serves as Minister of Information.” The Report neglected to mention that the newspaper, the Guyana Chronicle, was forced to issue an editorial position agreeing with, and defending, the Prime Minister’s position on the role of the State media.
The coverage of the State newspaper became even more sycophantic following the Prime Minister’s directive and in fact, earlier this year, took it upon itself to actually photoshop a front page picture to “show” the President with a multiracial crowd. Maybe this may appear in next year’s report.
Another area on which the “government as opposition” had criticised its predecessor was in the ethnic composition of the Cabinet. Taking a stance that it was much more open about the reality of Guyanese voting along ethnic lines, the parties to the coalition were specifically constituted to address ethnic imbalances in representation. Under the category of “Elections and Political Participation”, the Report agreed with the above assessment and noted:
“While supporters of the two major parties (the PPP/C and A Partnership for National Unity) were drawn largely from the Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese communities respectively, political party leadership was more diverse. The Cabinet is also ethnically diverse, mirroring the ethnic makeup of the general population. Four Cabinet members are Indo-Guyanese, including the Prime Minister. The ethnically diverse National Assembly included several indigenous members. There were also two indigenous Cabinet ministers.”
But there are some ambiguities and contradictions in the above statement that need to be explicated. Firstly, President Granger had created 27 Ministries – three within a Ministry of the Presidency and 23 others. Secondly, he has made a distinction between “Senior” and “Junior” Ministers and claims that only the former – amounting to 16 persons – attend “Cabinet” meetings. Evidently, the Report is referring to the latter group. But four Indo-Guyanese out of a total of 16 or 25 per cent is not “mirroring the ethnic makeup of the general population” when that group constitutes 43 per cent of the population according to the last declared census. If the total number of Ministers is considered, then the number of Indo-Guyanese increases to six. However, 6 out of 27 comes out to 23 per cent which makes the proportion even less representative.
Finally, in terms of “Representation of Women”, the Report noted: “The Constitution requires that one-third of each party list of electoral candidates be women” and “there were 16 women in the 65-member National Assembly”. It pointed out, however, as several NGOs had pointed out at the time, “President Granger named two women (or 13 per cent) to his 16-member Cabinet.”
It is clear that, as in several other areas of national life, the APNU/AFC Government has to pull its socks up.
