The nature of the local government system of a country largely depends on the ideological orientation of those responsible for its establishment. Consciously or unconsciously, some kind of worldview is always present, and so as to stymie impatience and avoid confusion, it is generally best that the vicissitudes of that worldview, as it relates to the issue at hand, be adequately and continuously considered as the negotiation process proceeds. In keeping with my intentions of providing a backdrop to the current efforts at local government reform, I will also attempt to give some idea of the possible relationship between ideology and local democracy.
The drafters of the 1980 Constitution claimed to be cooperative socialists and the national constitution was replete with their vision of how the country should be structured to give expression to their worldview. Thus, after declaring that Guyana is in transition to socialism and that the main objective of the state is to extend socialist democracy by giving the citizens increasing participatory opportunities, it stated in Article 13 that: “Local government by freely elected representatives of the people is an integral part of the democratic organisation of the State.”
The 2001 reforms removed the ideological allegiance to socialism and cooperatives and even recommended that Guyana be no longer known as a “Co-operative Republic.” (Since this change requires a referendum it has not yet occurred.) However, in relation to local government, the wording in Article 13 of the 1980 constitution remains and thus raises a few interesting questions.
Firstly, understood in a socialist context, the wording in Article 13 could have and possibly did have totally different meanings and implications for the organisations of local democracy than they did for the motley ideological context of the 2001 drafters. Secondly(peripheral consultations aside), the 1980 Constitution was, for the most part, the handiwork of a single party, while the 2001 reforms were the result of a compromise among disparate ideological groups, and it is doubtful if the words in Article 13 had the same or similar meaning for all the parties involved in the reform process.
The 1980 “State Paper on the Re-organisation of the Local Government System in Guyana” presented to the National Assembly by Desmond Hoyte, then Minister of Economic Development & Co-operatives, represents one of the clearest expressions of local democracy in general and the particular vision of the PNC.
Desmond Hoyte claimed that the worst defects of the extant system were that it was not informed by a “coherent philosophy” and was devised in the colonial context, which concerned itself with local government reform per se. Staying within the cooperative philosophical framework, he was intent upon involving the vast majority of citizens as active participants in the management of their own affairs. (At the time the PNC had estimated that once the system was completely in place, at any one time some twenty thousand citizens were to be actively involved in its operations). At the institutional level, according to Hoyte, the system was too centralised and lacked the level of self-sufficiency necessary to cope with the enormous developmental challenges of the time. Local authorities depended too much on rates and taxes, which were insufficient for them to provide adequate services to citizens, and their boundaries followed no particular logic.
At the time, the PNC was well known for rigging elections and the referendum that brought the constitution into force was no different. As was to be expected in this kind of environment, the proposed new local government system came in for serious criticisms. Some saw in its comprehensiveness the political machinations of the PNC, which, facing a dwindling political base, was attempting to use the State to get into and control every nook and cranny of Guyanese society.
For its part, the PPP has been, and still proclaims itself, if only cosmetically, a Marxist/Leninist party committed to democratic centralism, and matters not what the theory states and what was stated in the constitutions of the former Marxist states, autonomous local government was not part of this framework. In practice, democratic centralism entailed little democracy and a lot of centralism. For example, the constitution of the old Soviet Union gave the right to secede to all federal republics, but they could only effectively do so after the fall of communism, because that right to leave was circumscribed by a democratic centralist party structure with its well-established nomenclature that ran through every important public institution, particularly the security forces.
The PPP come from an ideological tradition where ultimate control is at the central level and thus it is more comfortable with delegation to local authorities than with devolution of powers. From its perspective, devolution, in which communities, within a broad moral and legal framework, determine, collect and independently spend their own resources, smacks, as was stated at its last congress, of the creation of a parallel government! However, this level of autonomy is precisely what an ethnically divided country such as ours requires, i.e. a decentralisation that is much closer to federalism than the simple delegation of authority, which can be withdrawn at the drop of a ministerial hat!
It should be noted though, that although located in a cooperative socialist framework that promised mass participation, the local government system Hoyte proposed was still very centralised. The Local Democratic Organs Act 1980 outlines the duties of local authorities in terms not unlike those that the PPP/C is demanding today. Section 7 states that only with the approval of the Minister may a local government authority make regulations for (1) the proper management and administration of its area; (2)raising revenue by tolls, rates, taxes and dues; (3)the conduct by it of any business which it may be authorised to carry on under its constitutional order, and (4) acquiring land compulsorily for local government purposes.
Local government decentralisation can be located on a continuum between minimum delegation and maximum devolution. In my view although Desmond Hoyte’s formulation was more radical than what the PPP/C is now demanding, it fitted reasonably well within the old Westminster majoritarian worldview which he only began to question a few years before his death. However, that model assumed a general commitment to universalism, the equitable distribution of resources and periodic regime rotation. Guyana was not like that then and it is not like that now!
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
