Following the naming of Attorney-at-Law Khemraj Ramjattan and retired Guyana Defence Force Brigadier David Granger as presidential candidates for the Alliance for Change and the People’s National Congress Reform the Guyana Review has secured interviews with the candidates which are published in this issue of the newspaper.
Following the announcement the PPP/C has named Mr Donald Ramotar as its presidential candidate the Guyana Review will be seeking an interview with him.
GR: A great many people regard you as a retiring academic and, as such perhaps, an unlikely presidential candidate. How do you respond to that?
GR: A great many people regard you as a retiring academic and, as such perhaps, an unlikely presidential candidate. How do you respond to that?
DG: A great many people might be unaware of the fact that I spent a major part of my life as a military officer – an experience that gave me first-hand experience of working and living among ordinary people. I do not think that I have ever really retired from understanding the forces that shape events in this country. I have deep concerns about the plight of the poor and the prospect of joblessness facing our youths. Many other Guyanese are worried about the low quality of life and the standard of human development of the ordinary people. They were the ones who persuaded me to seek the presidential candidacy of the People’s National Congress Reform. I am a presidential candidate today in response to requests by concerned citizens not as a result of personal ambition.
GR: A great deal of your academic work has centred on national security and crime. How central do you consider these issues to be to your vision for leading Guyana?
DG: You are right. I published a book recently on Public Security in Guyana in which I examined the challenge of criminal violence. It is my belief that a safe environment is a prerequisite for human security and economic development. Owing to the dire crime situation, ordinary people continue to migrate in large numbers. Entrepreneurs are reluctant to risk investing in an insecure environment. Even retirees in the diaspora are unwilling to return to spend their last days in the country of their birth out of fear of crime. Reducing the level of crime is central to human development and, yes, it is central to my vision of the sort of country I would like Guyana to become.
GR: After almost fifty years of independence do you believe that our political culture may be in need of a ‘makeover’ in order to try to remove defects such as racial division and race-based political loyalty?
DG: Our political culture is being made over gradually by both the actual demographic transition and attitudinal change. Young persons of all ethnicities have started to reject the so-called race-based politics espoused by some of their elders. Persons of ‘mixed’ ancestry now constitute the third largest ethnic group – about twenty per cent – of the population. The notion of ‘race’ has become meaningless for most of them. No single ethnic group is strong enough to dominate the electorate. Race-based political loyalties do persist but forward-looking political parties have come to realise that they must be more prepared to share power if they are to survive.
GR: Do you subscribe to what has become a popular view that managing Guyana requires a collective approach (what people describe as shared governance) rather than single-party rule. Is your own campaign centred around the notion of shared governance?
DG: The People’s National Congress Reform embraced the policy of shared governance more than a decade ago. Our party acknowledges the nation’s ethnic diversity but seeks to eliminate antagonistic political relations based on racial differences. Racial division will not be removed overnight. We must, however, encourage racial cohesion and mutual respect for the sake of enhancing governance in Guyana. This explains our adhesion to the agreements with the ‘Reform’ and the ‘One-Guyana’ components and our commitment to the continuing negotiations with other parties and civil society. These exemplify our commitment to shared governance.
GR: Do you believe that the style and substance of your campaign can slay the ghost of race-based voting in Guyana?
DG: Race-based voting is more than a mere ghost. It is beast which cannot be slain in a single election campaign by me or anyone else. Many people and their parties need to work together towards ‘slaying’ the beast, as you put it. That is why the PNCR has been working with others so that our combined efforts could neutralise the pernicious effects of race-based governance on the country. Both in style and substance, I have addressed this issue in our town-hall meetings in January and February.
GR: Voter apathy, particularly among young people in Guyana, is believed to be a function of their (young people’s) perception that the outcome of general elections changes nothing for them. In other words, that there is nothing in the political process for young people. How important does your campaign consider targeting young people to be?
DG: Our children are our future. This millennium belongs to them. I do not share the view that they are apathetic at all. They are very tuned in but to a different frequency from some adults. They are very articulate and they have clear ideas about the sort of future they want. They are keenly aware of their entitlement to better education and their need for greater access to opportunities for employment. They do not want to be led astray by legends of old hatreds. They want to get on with their lives. They want to hear from people who can tell them about the future.
GR: There are those who believe that style as much as substance will be important to your chances of unseating the current administration; that with regard to securing votes among younger Guyanese, for example, you will have to develop a campaign that is attractive – “cool” if you will – and that it cannot be done effectively through manifesto promises and political speeches. How do you respond to that?
DG: There is an eternal contest between entertainment and education. It would be a mistake, however, to think that young people are obsessed with the former and do not care about the latter. Our campaign has started to attract young people through social networks and face-to-face interaction. Our attentiveness to the education system which is populated by young people shows how much we care and that is indicative of what we intend to do in the future. This, coupled with creating a safe and secure environment, attracts young people. Our campaign has attracted young people in the hinterland, in coastal villages and elsewhere both by its style and substance.
GR: After more than 18 years of PPP/C Government what do you consider to be the defects in our country that are most urgently in need of correcting?
DG: There is no doubt that, with a rate of two armed robberies every day and nearly three murders every week, public security has been the single greatest failure of the PPP/C administration. Insecurity apart, the major defect has been the PPP/C administration’s failure to tackle the huge youth unemployment problem and to correct the faults in the education system. It is my belief that education and unemployment are connected. The administration seems to be obsessed with tallying the amounts of money spent on education instead of measuring the outcomes in terms of employment, economic growth, human development and the quality of life. A PNCR administration will deal urgently with security sector reform, the reform of the education system and relief of unemployment.
GR: What do you envisage would be the key concerns and pursuits of a David Granger political administration?
DG: A David Granger-led administration will be concerned first and foremost with education, education, education. It will aim at increasing funding and improving the conditions of service of the staff and students of the University of Guyana and the Cyril Potter College of Education and other teachers in order to create more settled conditions in the entire education system. Another key concern will be reducing youth unemployment by encouraging micro-enterprise and self-employment and by providing advanced agricultural and skills training in all of the administrative regions. In practice and as a prerequisite, however, it will be necessary at the same time to aim first at creating a safe environment for all citizens by reforming the police force in order to enhance public security and to create a safe environment in which all citizens can live and work in relative safety. It will aim, at the same time, at increasing funding of the University of Guyana.
GR: Your campaign for the PNCR presidential nomination has been a relatively quiet one but, now that you are the candidate, the spotlight is focused on you. President Jagdeo, for example, made a number of references to you recently in his so-called Babu John speech. First, did you bargain for the “rough and tumble” of contesting an election and, second, have you got a reaction to what President Jagdeo had to say at Babu John?
DG: I feel that the public interest would be well served by paying more attention to solving the actual problems in the education system and the economy and by providing employment opportunities for our people, especially the young. I think that, right now, people are most concerned about their quality of life and their personal security. My assessment of the opinions of writers as expressed in articles, editorials and letters in the press was that the public had little tolerance for what the president had to say at Babu John. People want to know about the future.
GR: How different is the PNCR of 2011 from the party that Burnham created?
DG: The differences between the party that was founded by Forbes Burnham 54 years ago in 1957 and the party of 2011 are largely ones of degree. One difference is that there is greater acceptance of the need to ensure that representatives are selected in a democratic manner – as evinced in the six-month-long presidential candidate selection process which culminated in a special congress last month. Another difference is that there is greater realisation that no single party can solve this country’s problems on its own.
There has been adhesion to the concept of power-sharing, through the alliances with the ‘Reform’ and ‘One-Guyana’ components and the current negotiations with other Opposition parties. These trends indicate that the party’s focus is on the future of our country – one that is democratic and just. The present-day PNCR has preserved the practice of internal democracy and inclusivity. It remains firmly rooted among the ordinary people.
