Introduction: Stabroek News has invited the People’s Progressive Party/Civic, A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance For Change (AFC) to submit a weekly column on governance and related matters. Only the AFC has submitted a column this week.
Thank you very much for that introduction, Valerie! Mr. Speaker, Members of Parliament, esteemed delegates, members and supporters of the AFC.
I had cause at our last Conference to express the sentiment that Guyana is at the crossroads. That a whole lot will depend on the leadership of the Alliance For Change in the forthcoming years.
We indeed provided that leadership in the past two years, at the Parliamentary level, right down to the bottom houses and street corners, from within all communities from Charity to Corentyne, Leonora to Lethem.
It has been a quality leadership which had seen us being recognised as a household name in every nook and cranny of the Guyanese community. We have stirred the minds of even our detractors with our right calls on the hot-button issues of the day. We have argued our case well, most times excellently. And we are here today. We have arrived and taken root, and certainly are creating huge waves to the distinct consternation of all that existed prior to our launch in 2005.
That is the glad tidings I bring which you are well aware of. But on the other hand there are many sad things which we have had to live through in our nation which leaves us all with a heavy heart.
There is decline all around us: sluggish growth, increasing inequality, massive corruption, anti social conduct at the highest levels, marginalization, malfunctioning institutions and alienation, even prorogation and I can go on.
It is as if this generation is marked out as the American social commentator Neal Ferguson has labeled, to be “The Great Degeneration”. We allow too much negligence, complacency, unprofessionalism and mediocrity to dominate. We appear to be motivated more by compensation than mission, by interests rather than passion. So we are at another cross-road and this time around we can label it “Dysfunction Junction”.
The Alliance For Change must be that party which halts this national decline and decay and degeneration!
That other great American intellect and writer on the liberal democratic tradition of our time, Francis Fukuyama, in a magisterial analysis in “Sources of Political Dysfunction: America in Decay” – (Foreign Affairs October, 2014 issue) indicates that this decay occurs when “economic winners seek to convert their wealth into unequal political influence.” That rings a bell here in Guyana – doesn’t it? These economic winners bribe legislators and bureaucrats by changing the institutional rules to favour themselves – for example by closing off competition in markets they dominate, tilting the playing field more steeply in their favour.
He further authoritatively pronounced that “Political decay also occurs when institutions fails to adapt to changing external circumstances, either out of intellectual rigidities or because of the power of incumbent elites to protect their positions and block change. And while democratic political systems have self-correcting mechanisms that allow them to reform, they also open themselves up to decay by legitimating the activities of powerful interest groups that can block needed change.”
So the lesson from Fukuyama is a combination of intellectual rigidity, what I call dogmatism, and the power of entrenched political actors in preventing those institutions from being reformed. He goes on to inform us that “the political elite loves to speak the language of liberty but are perfectly happy to settle for privilege.” This they do through a process of kin selection bypassing rules and incentives to overcome the tendency to favour family and friends. That certainly rings another bell. Doesn’t it? So much what he says happens right here in Guyana.
What then is to be done? Brothers and sisters, comrades all, this herculean task can only be undertaken in our view by the collective effort of all Guyanese. We have to live the lives of true patriots and true citizens. I want to remind us here that true citizenship is not just about voting and being law-abiding. It is also participation. Participating in our larger community, understanding the other, understanding our institutions of governance, out constitution, our human rights, becoming aware so that we can better govern ourselves, better educate our children, to care for the helpless, to fight crime, to keep our streets clean. At the individual level much then has to be done.
To halt this decay requires, along with the reform zeal, the integrity of leadership which the AFC has produced over the years since its formation. But it will require more to come on board. We have to work hard to make a grander more superior organisation, to reach out to the numbers who need leadership out there. We must not have self-doubts nor lack confidence that it cannot be done. Often times we too suffer from complacency and malaise and beat ourselves up. But amidst all these challenges it can be done and it will be.
Brothers and sisters, the AFC is operating in the certain knowledge that elections are imminent as it holds this its 4th Biennial Delegates Conference, and even now, prepares to launch its elections campaign in the near future.
The Party is confident, based on support throughout the country, and the results of constant public opinion surveys, that it has the capacity, and the leadership, to offer Guyana a better deal and a brighter future. To this end the AFC firmly believes that every citizen, every group and every political party that has something wholesome to offer to the effort of a renewed and transformed Guyana must find a way to cooperate, and to deliver to the people of Guyana, a true Government of National Unity, one in which the politics of inclusion reigns over the politics of fear and division.
The AFC is therefore ready to enter into negotiations and to lead a Pro-Democracy Coalition of progressive forces that should comprise civic groups, workers unions and political forces; including even disaffected PPP leaders and members; and not excluding the APNU.
To this end immediately following the Conference we will begin a series of engagements with organizations and will continue these apace, and in earnest, as we build a movement of the willing that is grounded in a shared vision of immediate wholesome changes for Guyana, and that is established on an agreed programme of Constitutional, Governance, Economic and Social Reforms.
