After a year of debilitating political confrontation that has poisoned the atmosphere in Parliament and spawned divisive but potent protests such as at Linden, one can understand the deep sense of frustration and bewilderment that the average member of the public feels and the angst at what the approaching year may bring.
Nothing fruitful has emerged from this year of duelling. The PPP/C has refused to accept that it has lost control of the legislature while the opposition has clumsily asserted its one seat majority and to little real impact. Despite its much vaunted and historic cuts of the 2012 budget none of them has altered the entrenched defiance of the PPP/C. Indeed, it seems to have emboldened it in certain areas like the questionable expenditure on the Marriott Hotel and contract employees among other categories.
There is nothing in the last year that hints at any short-term tangible departure from this troubled and troubling course. The way ahead is littered with a series of court challenges pertaining to the internal workings of the legislative branch, acrimony at every step in Parliament as engendered in the action against Minister Rohee and stagnation on many signal undertakings from both sides such as the committees set up to address the issues underlying the Linden protests and consultations on key constitutional posts.
All the while, the economy limps along, bailed out for the most part by the buoyant but shadowy gold sector and the deal with Venezuela for oil on credit terms and a barter arrangement for rice. There is little dynamism in the economy and job prospects for thousands entering the labour market each year are dim. There has been no significant reorientation of the economy away from the primary commodities – gold included – and value added is anaemic to non-existent.
So are Guyanese fated to endure another year of calumny and nothingness or will their fortunes change significantly for the better? It is evident from the PPP/C’s posture that its primary objective is to return to the polls to wrest a majority. That is an exercise pregnant with risk for the party as underlined by the election results from November 28 last year which demonstrated a substantial fall in support and diversion of votes to the AFC and a resurgent PNCR under the APNU rubric. There are also the warnings from those within and without that the ruling party is in decline and that only fundamental change will rescue it.
Much of the potential and responsibility for stimulating change in the stagnated body politic rests with President Ramotar. Many in the PPP and outside of the party would agree that he was not the best candidate that the party could have offered at the 2011 elections. His ambitions were however championed by former President Bharrat Jagdeo as he was seen as a safe pair of hands and someone who could be persuaded to preserve the programmes, undertakings and future vision of a presidency that had no chance of a third term. Much of the expectation of former President Jagdeo and the Jagdeoites has already been given solid purchase by virtue of the mostly unchanged Jagdeo Cabinet and the nascent and in-the-pipeline projects such as Marriott, Amaila Hydro and the Cheddi Jagan International Airport which still present serious questions not yet answered. The aspirations of the Jagdeoites has also been requited in the form of governance under President Ramotar – tightly scripted by the hardliners in the PPP and the Office of the President and completely averse to transparency, inquiry and robust watchdog institutions. This is governance according to the Jagdeoites.
Does President Ramotar really have to subscribe to this most cynical, self-absorbed and downright unjust means of discharging his mandate as Executive President of a country which for the first time in its 46-year, post-colonial history has a minority government? We think not. Irrespective of whether his accession to the Presidency was owed to former President Jagdeo, President Ramotar holds the rein of office in his own right. He is not beholden to anyone, only to the sacred oath of office, the constitution and the understanding that he presides in the interest of all Guyanese.
He must clearly make his own mark; assert himself though his own policies and do what he must know is right. The President has not projected his own vision for the country in the last year or so. All of his major utterances have been reactive and many of them duds like the tax reform committee and the play for a deal with APNU on the 2012 budget. Undoubtedly this hash of overtures and initiatives which is not embedded in a larger framework is exactly the result of not delineating his own expectation for a dynamic Guyana at the end of his term. This is what he must overcome. It will be him who is judged at the end of the five years and not former President Jagdeo or some amorphous sketch of what the PPP/C wanted.
The coming year offers President Ramotar a broad palette with which to direct the enormous task of nation building. He knows the present score. There is gridlock in parliament as a result of the best opposition showing in 20 years. He stands above the fray and must appear so. It is his task to break the deadlock and he can do so by virtue of the enormous powers vested in his office and more importantly by virtue of equanimity and a sense of fair play. Reasonable minds can craft practical and constructive solutions. This is exactly the plane on which President Ramotar must command the stage. He of his own accord and his own strength must initiate a series of meetings with the leaders of the two parliamentary parties to chart a way forward for the country and more precisely for the average man and woman who are labouring under the onerous and deadening weight of the insider politics and the jarring restraints to progress. There is the immediate issue of the 2013 budget, major infrastructural projects, local government reform and settling the Linden crisis. The public – all of it – knows who is talking a good talk and who is making mature and honourable compromises in the interest of the country.
Ultimately, a fresh election before the end of five years would be the result of the failure to approach reasonableness. It is the last thing needed. The President and the opposition can surely agree to a modus vivendi for getting the business of the country going in a way that doesn’t diminish the other and gives hope to people who have been desperately yearning for the type of change that would catapult the country into a new sphere of progress and human development as it nears its 50th year of independence. The stage beckons the President.
