Alliance For Change (AFC) leader Khemraj Ramjattan says that he believes the AFC’s performance in the last elections placated a potentially explosive situation which may have occurred had the PPP/C won a majority.
He made the statement while addressing the Congress of the People (COP) Convention in Trinidad last week Saturday. Ramjattan was invited as guest speaker to deliver the feature address on “The relevance of Third Parties in Race Based Politics: the Case of Guyana,” the AFC said. According to a copy of Ramjattan’s speech, released by the AFC yesterday, the party leader said that what happened in Guyana recently makes it abundantly clear that third parties have a relevance in race-based societies previously dominated by two generally tribal parties. The third party in Guyana-the AFC-proved to be a positive force in that it was able to create a minority government, and to place itself to be that balance of power, and even to manage to wrest the Speakership of the National Assembly from the PPP/C, he said.
“I believe to a certain extent, the AFC’s performance in the last elections, which saw it as breaking the back of a PPP/C majority win, placated a potentially explosive situation which may have occurred had the PPP/C won a majority,” he stated. “Further, the calling out by the AFC that the election results of the 2011 General Elections was free and fair based on its scrutineers’ accounts in the various ballot stations placated a potential explosive situation which saw some in APNU believing that there may have been rigging,” he added. “Had there not been an AFC, I rather suspect the seeds for the recycling of a scenario of the 1997 spectacle may well have been manufactured.” The 1997 elections spawned widespread unrest and a challenge to the results which saw Caricom becoming involved.
Urging that leaders of third parties like COP stay the course, Ramjattan said that there is a tremendous relevance for a third party in a race-based politics as happen in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.
He also declared that where a person of East Indian descent or Afro descent breaks ranks with what are perceived to be their traditional parties, they should not be branded as traitors. “We have to eradicate the slur and slight which states that when an East Indian breaks rank with his Indo-based party that he is a nemakharam; and, similarly a traitor, when an Afro breaks rank from his Afro-based party!”. This was a pointed reference to the PPP/C, which had described its former longstanding member Moses Nagamootoo as a nemakharam when he switched to the AFC.
Voices
Ramjattan said that fundamental to good government is that people be enabled to participate in taking decisions which affect their lives and sharing in the workings of government. This necessarily entails an improvement of communication by the existing government, and greater freedom of information available to citizens, Ramjattan said. “The result will see more voices being heard at national and local levels on issues which affect their lives. And we all know that drawing in more of the talents, of more of our people, more of the time always leads to better government.” A third party provides the platform to launch a greater participation in the decision making process, or at least to provide an additional opportunity to procure such a greater participation, he asserted.
He said too that a third party provides an opportunity for a platform for debating complex issues, which is not generally promoted by the two existing parties. “At the very least, the third party forces the other two parties through the competitive spirit to bring the issues to the people,” Ramjattan said.
He also noted that Guyana’s political history, like Trinidad and Tobago’s, has as a characteristic about its two dominant parties: ethnic-based politics. He asserted that ethnic voting patters prevailed in the November 28 general elections here. The AFC leader said that although third parties usually have little chance of forming a government or winning the position of Head of Government, though this cannot be said to be impossible or improbable, “they seem to have relevance in race-based societies in the sense that they tend to bridge the racial divide, thereby seeking to present a multiracial party.”
“We need third parties today, more than ever, if we are to bridge the racial divide in the hope of changing the political system in race-based societies,” Ramjattan said, adding that this objective can work well in a scenario like Guyana where the ethnicities are all below 50 percent.
Further, Ramjattan argued that the literature and “the reality as I see it” seem to suggest that elections lead to the creation of an “ethnic congregating” in a Guyana and Trinidad context. “And when elections are held, the numerically larger group (or coalition of groups) wins. And when this happens the winners extract the benefits of controlling the State for its own ethnic group and exclude other groups from State resources,” he said. “The losers cannot hope to attract additional voters in subsequent electoral rounds and facing prospects of permanent exclusion, the losers will have no reason to continue playing the electoral game. More likely than not, the loser will seek non-democratic means of gaining power which damages the chances of democracy’s survival. A majoritarian elected dictatorship and domination potentially can lead to breakdowns; this can then be countered by the elected dictatorship fighting back and the result being civil strife…”, he argued.
Ramjattan said that a third party which seeks to break out from the strictures of hierarchy and centralism can be very relevant in race-based politics dominated by two tribalistic existing parties. The AFC has achieved this, he said.
He took a swipe at both the PPP/C and APNU. He said despite name changes, “they both represent an older order of hierarchy and centralism and race-based politics. The PPP/C under a [Bharrat] Jagdeo leadership over the last decade, worse still, created a favoured elite, which I recently described in a Presidential Debate at UG as a Sultanate.”
First choices
Third forces in such a landscape as Guyana and Trinidad will do well and may even emerge as first choices if they pursue a national vision of healing and reconciliation with the end of embracing all; policies which are anchored in fundamental human rights; fairness among ethnic groups with special attention being paid to what is being called recently “horizontal equality”; and the protection of minorities, including the indigenous peoples and women, Ramjattan argued.
He also said that leaders of third parties have to “live the examined life” and show that they transcend “ethnic gravitations.”
“A race-based politics has its origins in our homes, and the various stereotypes we create there about the other. We must be the first to condemn that. We must ensure a new curriculum in the school system which will foster an appreciation or a greater appreciation of the various ethnicities and races so that our next generation can be tolerant of the other. So that reason-based and issue-based politics become prevalent,” Ramjattan told the audience.
