The current political panorama is not of a quality to lift the electorate’s spirits. Neither of the two major political forces has been behaving altogether rationally in more recent times, in addition to which both lack coherence and cohesiveness. The one has gone into atavistic mode, while the other is in stasis. There are no new insights, no novel approaches to our problems and no inspiration emanating from either quarter; it is all about doom, gloom and above all else, recrimination.
Short of making an open declaration, the PPP has more-or-less made it clear that it is going for a general election before local government elections. No doubt that accounts for the unusually malignant atmosphere, even by Guyana’s none too sanitized standards. The party still clings desperately to the belief that what worked for it in electoral terms decades ago, will still work for it now. In other words, it insists on walking backwards into the future.
This weekend’s edition of the party organ the Mirror is nothing if not illustrative of this. There was the editorial headlined ‘50 Years After Sibley Hall’ which regurgitated yet again some of the early history of the PPP, and was little concerned with the here and now half a century on, while the front page was devoted to the PPP sponsored Marxist Committee symposium which had been reported somewhat less fulsomely in the press last week. (En passant, one has to wonder if anyone under the age of retirement knows what Sibley Hall was.)
President Ramotar is to address the symposium, which one suspects is somewhat short on Marxist scholars, although that is really not the point here. What is relevant is that it represents an attempt to reconnect with roots, as though the events post-1989 had never happened, and the reality was what the older members were familiar with in the party’s halcyon days all those decades ago.
In the meantime, the PNC is also being obliged to respond to the past, although in its case it has not chosen to bring up the subject. Opposition Leader David Granger paid a visit to an area of New York usually associated with the PPP, and was invited to the home of Mr Mike Persaud, where he entertained questions from guests. Opinion was divided as to whether he performed well or his approach lacked deftness, but that division to all intents and purposes related to one question alone, namely, should the PNC apologise.
It is a question which has generated a considerable amount of correspondence in the columns of this newspaper, but it should be observed that the question itself was not very precisely framed. Exactly what was the PNC being asked to apologise for – the rigging of elections, or the “excesses”, as they’ve been described in letters or both? Furthermore, which period of PNC rule should be encompassed within this apology – the whole 24 years of illegal rule or just the Burnham period? Mr Granger himself is on record as remarking earlier that all sides committed excesses, while his response subsequently was that every side had made ‘mistakes’, and where any group felt that ‘errors’ had been made, those could be investigated.
It is of course true that in the early sixties ‘excesses’ were committed by both sides, but in any case if there were to be an apology it would have to be for the rigging alone; everything else that transgressed human rights norms under the PNC in a sense flowed from this. In addition, of course, the PPP’s critics have not been slow to call for an apology from them as well given their record in certain specific areas. In the end it is simply not practical or realistic to expect blanket apologies.
However, where Mr Granger’s insistence that allegations of rigging should be investigated with evidence adduced, is concerned, that is disingenuous in the extreme; what has emerged over the years including from reputable overseas teams and British Granada TV programmes – never mind the PPP’s own records which were diligently assembled – brooks of no doubt. Nevertheless, having said that, timing is everything. No apology (or even expression of regret) is likely to be forthcoming in such a hostile political environment with presumably an election somewhere on the horizon. Furthermore, the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry is also an unpropitious context for such a baring of the soul. A casual look at some of the front pages of the state paper reveals that the inquiry is being used for rank propaganda purposes, and this despite the fact that barring details about the personal role played by certain individuals, nothing has yet emerged in relation to the larger picture which was not known already.
But here again, the PPP is hoping that although Dr Rodney was killed thirty-four years ago and the former President Burnham died almost thirty years ago, it can infuse the younger generation with its own animus against the PNC, and that the members of that generation will go forth and put their ‘x’ against the traditional symbol. For its part the PNC is not certain about what ultimately will come out of this inquiry, so, it will make no concessions now, even if there are those in the party who feel that in principle it should be done at some point.
So with the PPP absorbed with attempting to conjure up the past, and the PNC absorbed with seeking to escape the past, the people’s business is not receiving the attention which it deserves. As said above, one seeks in vain for evidence of energy, careful thinking, common sense or new ideas from our battle-hardened politicians and their leaders on all sides of the divide, but mutual disparagement seems to be their only forte.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the matter of the infamous Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Bill. The substance of the latest communication from the President about an offer to APNU has been contradicted by the Leader of the Opposition and no one knows exactly where the truth lies. The worst of it is, no one cares either. At this stage, everyone except the political parties, it seems, wants the bill passed; they are not bothered about what compromises are made to get there, they just want our irresponsible politicians, especially their leaders, to see their way to doing it.
In a letter in our edition today, Mr Clinton Urling writes of a failure of leadership to get things done in the people’s best interest. He couldn’t be more right.
