Dear Editor,
I thank Mark DaCosta for taking the time to pen a letter published on September 24. We have now come full circle on the issue and do have some common ground. Thus this is also my final response to him.
Many years of being an active participant (exclusively only in the PPP and the AFC) and now an active observer of Guyana politics, have provided me with the opportunity to revisit my unswerving belief that the PNC (which dominates the APNU) and the PPP are toxic for Guyana. But to date I have very limited evidence to convince myself that these ideologically bankrupt political dinosaurs will ever change their mode of operations. My readings, especially the works of people like Walter Rodney, effectively reinforce this position. In his attempt to bury this truth, Mr DaCosta sometimes can be found to be very dissonant in his writing and thus expose his agenda as a propagandist on behalf of his political bosses in Congress Place.
Editor, I have chosen to focus on collaborating with like-minded forces in exposing the APNU and PPP for their political insincerity. My energies will be spent on engendering a political environment that fosters a third way, but at the end of the day we can only advocate; the final decision rests with the people. But Mark equates a third way with being the AFC’s way, and this is where his entire theoretical thesis is flawed. The AFC is not exclusively the third way. The third way, Editor, is a government of national unity and the establishment of seat strength in that construct rests exclusively in the hands of the people.
But Editor, Mr DaCosta and I do have much common ground, such as:
- I agree that no political party has a monopoly on good ideas especially his APNU. Might I remind him that it is the PNC that made Guyana uncreditworthy and the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. The empirical evidence shows the APNU which is dominated by the PNC, is the least equipped of the three parties to turn Guyana around since it is under their watch hundreds of cases of beri-beri, white mouth and malnutrition were unearthed.
- I agree that the political parties must present their public policies as soon as possible.
- I agree that political unity is very important. However, MrDaCosta refuses to accept his political party is one of the principle contributors to limited progress on this front. In the absence of political forgiveness, political unity will remain elusive. These political excesses and abuses of political power in the past under the PNC and present under the PPP cannot be wished away.
- I agree that we need fundamental adjustment in the system but the strongest advocate for a new constitution has been Nigel Hughes and the AFC. The empirical evidence will illustrate that Rupert Roopnaraine in an interview with Princeton University, confirmed that the 1978 Burnham constitution was “foisted on to the people in a fraudulent referendum.” So how can the frauds lead the reforms? The evidence also revealed that the PNC and PPP deliberately hijacked and engineered the last attempt at constitutional reform by totally ignoring the big question of ethnic insecurities. What they offered in exchange was a most partisan and ineffective Ethnic Relations Commission without addressing the fundamental issue.
The responsibility for the contrition of the PNC cannot be bundled onto the backs of the people surreptitiously, without the PNC taking responsibility for its past actions. Thus Mr DaCosta seems to be operating in a bubble that exposes his disconnect from the political expectations of the majority of the people. Exactly how he and the supporters of the PNC reconcile this expectation with their political action is not obvious. Owing to the unyielding, unintelligent and intransigent political action from the PNC, most of the former PPP supporters who have started to cross the political fence away from the PPP by the thousands since 2011, will not move to Congress Place. Mr DaCosta calls this exclusionist, I call it reality.
So rest assured, I am a firm advocate of a government of national unity where there will always be a place for the PPP and the PNC at the table but at a minimum, they have to level with the people and enhance their morality score. Their gate pass into the government of national unity demands some acknowledgement of their past political excesses and a commitment to a value system that encourages political transparency, financial accountability and social integrity. In the final analysis, sweeping unresolved political issues under the carpet is unacceptable.
Yours faithfully,
Sase Singh
