Dear Editor,
Letters on power-sharing for Guyana were recently published by Dr Henry Jeffrey. He argues for a yet-to-be-determined nebulous power-sharing formula from the PNC-led position as a solution to perceived race/political problems. Dr Tara Singh sees the absence of trust for such a political arrangement. Dr Leslie Ramsammy dismisses Jeffrey’s most recent argument as a “racist rant …”.
After it all, I couldn’t help but wonder at the motive driving the PNC’s executive power-sharing need.
The first Jeffrey letter takes issue with the European Union’s Election Report for referring to the power-sharing systems already existing in Guyana’s Constitution and underutilised. For him, the constitutional power-sharing provisions that came out of the 2000 electoral reforms do not provide adequate power-sharing. He wants it to be executive power sharing.
His reason? Guyana is “sharply ethnically polarised” and ruled by an “ethnic government”, with an “extremely marginal majority”. And he sees the PPP/C Government as one of questionable validity and perpetuating “ethnic autocracy”. So, based on these delusions he wants shared executive power for the PNC. He sees it as the magic solution to his imagined racism and his history of ethnic struggle and electoral manipulation.
Dr Singh sees executive power-sharing, to be impractical. That there is no historical or logical support for such an invention. He thinks the two parties are incompatible. And trust between them is non-existent with PNC outbursts aimed at demonising the PPP/C Government. The two factors mentioned by Singh are valid and intertwined and make any talk of executive power-sharing a waste of time.
But is there any need to even talk about power sharing in Guyana’s governance? Is it a reflection more of political immaturity on our nation by those calling for this arrangement? The answers to these questions may show there is no need to even consider the trust or incompatibility issue of the parties. As the call may well be driven by motives outside the best interest of our nation.
The call it seems, clearly comes from the PNC feeling entitled to power above any other party and will do anything to get and keep it. And history shows it has done all it could to do so to satisfy that perceived entitlement. It drove Forbes Burnham to split from the PPP in the 1950s then lured the UF into a coalition to gain power. That feeling of PNC entitlement put our country through decades of rigged elections, dictatorship, and suffering.
After the restoration of democracy, the party found it easier to deceptively change names and formations than its nature. That became clear to all thinking Guyanese after the 2020 elections. That Guyana’s real problem is the nature of the PNC. And not the delusions it keeps feeding to that part of our population it persists in keeping mentally enslaved. So, they label those who make a better choice for their personal and country’s progress as house slaves, slave catchers, and soup drinkers. They label Government functionaries as ‘jagabats’, and trench crapos’.
The last formation lured in the AFC with a sweetheart deal to gain power. Then they spent the 2015 – 2020 period plotting and trying to seize power for perpetuity rather than serving the nation. For this purpose, there was the unilateral appointment of James Patterson as the GECOM Chairman. Then there was the failed attempt to rig the result of the 2020 elections. Then flowed PNC’s delusions of padded voters’ list, the dead voting, and rigging by the other side, to apartheid in our country. Now the demand for power-sharing seems the new route to fixing themselves in power outside the democratic process.
Sharing is working positively together. What instances of cooperation with the PPP/C Government for Guyana’s good can Jeffrey cite to support his call? There was a great opportunity to show that executive power-sharing can work for the good of Guyana. During President Donald Ramotar’s minority Administration, they showed it can’t work. The APNU and the AFC teamed up to prevent the Government from advancing our country’s development.
The tantalising prospect of a power grab was within reach and saw the Opposition show its anti-development, anti-Guyana nature. They blocked the hydro project, the specialty hospital, and the airport project, and tried to prevent building the Marriott. They abandoned all pretence of wanting to work together in our country’s interest. They chose to set our country backward. The 2012 to 2020 period has already given Guyana a taste of what PNC power-sharing with the PPP/C will be like.
Current Opposition efforts to demonise the Government and create discontent tell a lot about how any form of sharing power will go. The fixation on power sharing seems part of the plot to get power outside the democratic process. The 2020 elections seem to have awakened the reality that regaining power by subverting the electoral process has become near impossible. So, a power-sharing arrangement would give the best hope of finding another path to absolute power once again. A coalition by another name to seize and subvert the democratic process that is being nurtured for the benefit of all Guyanese!
Rather than changing its nature and playing fairly in the system, the PNC wants to shape the political space in its way to satisfy its feeling of power entitlement. They want shared governance as another way to neutralise our country’s democracy. Whatever form it takes it would be a disregard for the democratic process. Or is power sharing a new way to rig the electoral process to appease the Opposition’s hunger for power?
Sincerely,
Art Foster
