What could have led to the government’s decision to terminate its participation in the USAID-funded Leadership and Democracy (LEAD) project? It couldn’t have been the extravagant claim by the Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Luncheon that there had been `grievous abandonment’ of the government by the US in discussion of the contours of the project. That would seem quite preposterous in the face of the documentation released by the US embassy on Thursday outlining the history of correspondence between the two sides – including to President Ramotar – going all the way back to October, 2012.
Surely if this had been a government-to-government arrangement and Washington was seeking to interfere in matters of national security or making untoward demands the government would be well in order to show it the front door. This is a problem of a different order for the PPP/C; a project that can open up new vistas and thinking for citizens and their prospective leaders as they face local government elections and beyond. Among the varied components of the project are strengthening the capacity of Members of Parliament and the staff of the National Assembly to investigate and research issues and draft legislation. Citizen education about local government reforms and the role of local government are also integral aspects of this project. These would be valuable inputs in the stagnated local government network.
Over the last decade in particular, the PPP/C has traded unrelentingly and unjustifiably on its democracy credentials. There is no doubting that it championed the fight for the restoration of democracy in 1992 along with many unsung others, both here and abroad. However, this spearheading of the campaign certainly has not resulted in the democracy dividend that had been hoped for at the local and community level considering that the PPP/C has been in office for 21 years on the trot. There has been no efflorescence of community control of decision making, a direct result of the government’s failure to hold local government elections since 1994 and the stymieing of reform legislation. Instead, as we have pointed out before in these columns, the government has been content with hijacking local government organs, relying on extant backwards laws and installing its hand-picked supporters to take charge. In these conditions there can be no meaningful transformation of local government.
From the outset, the government presented itself as lukewarm on this USAID project. Its representatives at the inauguration in July this year were Culture Minister Dr Anthony and MP Indra Chandarpal. Smarting from the loss of its parliamentary majority in 2011 the government has apparently now arrived at the conclusion that this project presents too great a risk to its preference for the local government organs to remain in a state of suspended animation and for the people of the country to remain uninvolved and disconnected from local government. This is a great travesty as it could deny supporters of the ruling party and others the chance to be a part of a transformative project which would help them to understand the challenges of democracy.
This project also has at its core the involvement of women and young people in politics and civic education on what is expected of them. These might seem innocuous and unthreatening to the average person. To the PPP however they represent the prospect that its narrative of political life would be contextualized. So whereas today the PPP never tires of expounding on Cold War machinations against it, the ghost of Burnham, 24 years of rigged elections and pressures from the PNC post 1992, a project of this nature is likely to have matters presented through a more contemporary prism; one that could lead to the ordinary person arriving at the view that there has been insidious atrophying of the local government system and that it needs urgent rescuing. The decay is evident not only in the buildings of these local government organs but in their administrative operations and their engagement with their constituents.
Given the decrepit state of local government, why would any help of this nature be frowned on or much more rejected? After all, it is the same PPP which when in opposition was open to any and every intervention by the US and the Western support group to ensure that the 1992 general elections were free and fair. From electoral reforms, elections materiel, training, advisors to international observers, the PPP was supportive of all of the measures taken by the US, UK and Canada. This also included the unrelenting lobbying of their legislatures and sympathetic politicians and also via enclaves of Guyanese in the metropolises. So these present objections to this project come across as the starkest irony and testimony that while it prates about democracy the PPP is unwilling to support the development of a project that could potentially empower people across the country.
The rejection of this project is also reflective of the manner in which the government frustrated the UK on sweeping police reforms until London had no other option but to withdraw it. Such behaviour by the PPP/C was again predicated on an intention not to upset the present dysfunctional order by having senior policemen from abroad seconded to important posts in the force among other significant changes. For the PPP/C, this would have represented an unacceptable loss of control over the force. The dispute over the UK project and this one will no doubt further unbalance relations with traditional allies and raise piercing questions about foreign policy.
No longer can President Ramotar be shielded by newness or the histrionics of Dr Luncheon and other government officials. He has to be held accountable for the bewildering turns as it relates to good governance and the prospering of democracy at the local government level. He must set out his position on the jettisoning of the government’s role in this democracy project.