While significant progress has been made in overcoming ethnic divisions in the country, there still remains political division, President Bharrat Jagdeo says.
Responding to a question from this newspaper regarding his failure to address the political divide in the nation as promised, Jagdeo told a media conference two Fridays ago that the political division in the country would continue to exist because of the nature of politics. “There is political divide and in most societies you will have that because that’s the competitive nature of politics,” Jagdeo said at his office. “The people in opposition want to get in government and the people in government want to stay in government. So you will always have conflicts and one side needs to make the other side look bad and the other side needs to talk about what they are doing,” he said. “This will never be changed until the nature of politics changes. So that political divide will always be there,” Jagdeo opined.
Following, his re-election as President in 2006, Jagdeo had promised to bridge the political divide in the country by fostering greater collaboration with the opposition. His pledge was to pursue national unity and development with the broadest participation.
He had assured that there would be scope for all political parties to work together under an enhanced framework of political cooperation, rooted in the primacy of parliament, grounded in a system that is responsive and accountable, and extended to civil society to deepen its participation in decision-making. Jagdeo and the Opposition have traded the blame for the failure to realize this enhanced framework for co-operation. In January, Jagdeo made a renewed pitch for such a framework but no apparent progress has been made on this.
On Friday, however, the President said that the significant progress made in bridging the racial divide in Guyana is reflected in workplaces, housing communities and the genuine relationships among the citizenry. “Most of our people are getting along well and not in a tolerant way but in a genuine way,” Jagdeo said. “They link friendships and see progress together. They’re making progress together. So I am convinced that our country is changing,” the President added.
The President said that he was well aware of how “difficult it was in the past” but opined that they still existed a few persons who were bent on taking the nation back to this past. This is “because they don’t know anything else…they don’t have positive things around which to mobilize people,” Jagdeo said.
The President said that he and his government had taken a very strong stance against racism in the country and explained that this is what prompted his recent lawsuit against Kaieteur News and columnist Freddie Kissoon. “The Kaieteur News and Freddie Kissoon have been maligning me and cussing me all the time…. but they crossed one line… and this has nothing to do with personal anymore…they crossed the line of racism,” Jagdeo said. “And I see them trying to whip up once again, racial sentiments in our society. And that is what I’m not going to tolerate,” the President added. “We’re going to fight this right down the line. And that is why the lawsuit has to do with this. He has to prove I’m racist and he has to prove that my government’s policies have their origin in that in the court. So I’m looking forward to this wonderful day in court, when we do that,” Jagdeo said.
“So I’m happy how far we have come.
Have we killed this problem? No, the answer is no,” Jagdeo said. “It requires many, many years more of us working. And not Jagdeo, but since all of us have a stake- particularly young people- they have more of the burden to kill this problem and not to allow a few people from another age to destroy their future. That is why I keep saying young people have to get involved, they have to be part of the solution, the President said.
“I’m very pleased with how far we’ve come. But it doesn’t mean that I am starry-eyed about where we are today.
We need much more hard work to resolve this problem definitively,“ Jagdeo stated.
