An assessment of how the new government has been performing would produce something of a mixed verdict. It was, of course, fairly extravagant in its pre-election promises to voters in relation to its first one hundred days in office, and considering that some of the more important pledges were contingent on the presentation of a budget, perhaps it was somewhat reckless too. The budget is due in the near future, however, and then the citizenry will discover to what extent the government has been able to adhere to some of its more important pre-poll undertakings.
While there are isolated areas where the administration appears to be performing well, in a general sense it seems to lack an overall sense of direction. There are, it is true, far too many ministries, not to mention a plethora of ministers, who seem to trespass without a second thought on one another’s turf. The net impression is one where the lines of responsibility have not been clearly drawn, and that a certain degree of muddle reigns. The situation is not helped if contradictory statements are made.
Mr Khemraj Ramjattan is the Minister of Public Security, but his space for manoeuvre to carry out his functions is circumscribed by others, both at a ministerial level, and more inexplicably at the level of a presidential advisor. Just what, one wonders, was Presidential Advisor Edward Collins doing visiting Berbice and then pronouncing ministerial style on the security situation there, and the fact that the government would be reviving the Community Policing Groups (CPGs)? This, it might be noted, is after Minister Ramjattan had redirected new vehicles which the previous government had earmarked for the CPGs, to the Police Force.
Just what was Brigadier (rtd) Collins trying to do? Undermine the authority of the Minister? Sideline him? Or was it simply naivety, because he has always operated within a military context and was unfamiliar with the norms and protocols of civilian government? Ministers must be given the room to function, otherwise they will simply cease to perform; after all, what is the point of taking decisions if others in government are going to overrule them or disregard them? Effective government simply cannot be achieved that way.
And it is not as if Mr Ramjattan had not started off rather well, wasting no time in asking the Commissioner of Police to dismiss Corporal Mohanram Dolai who had been involved in the torture of a teenager on the West Coast, and announcing the implementation of the law with regard to the closure of bars, etc, at 2 am. As a hard-drinking society, the Minister came in for a great deal of flak for this one, with critics tilting at windmills by claiming there was no nexus between the commission of serious crimes like armed robbery and alcohol. That, however, was not presumably what Mr Ramjattan had in mind; what he had in mind were domestic violence and fatal accidents on the roads, and the links with alcohol consumption where those are concerned are not in dispute, either here or outside this country.
The political congnoscenti – not to mention the opposition, of course – have been watching very closely to see if the incumbents with military backgrounds are really adapting to the sometimes messy democratic culture of civilian life. Consultation and compromise are difficult habits to cultivate, and in all fairness, the previous government was simply not very good at them either. Brigadier Collins aside, what has been noticed is that Minister of the Presidency Joseph Harmon has slipped almost imperceptibly into the full role that Dr Roger Luncheon filled for the previous administration. He speaks on everything, albeit – if one may be permitted a reservation – with sometimes less grasp of his brief than the circumlocutory Doctor boasted.
But the military component of the government is not the main issue except as it feeds into a larger issue, namely, how a very fragile government can be held together and given an overall sense of direction. The temptation for elements in the PNC now they are in office within the context of a coalition, will be to ignore their ‘minor’ partners and push ahead with their own agenda, marginalizing the other party. If such thinking finds fertile ground among any of those who hold sway in the higher echelons of the organization, then this is extremely dangerous.
The PNCR is only back in office courtesy of those who voted for the AFC, and it cannot return to power in the next election – or a few after that ‒ on its own. Theoretically, of course, the AFC could bring this government down if relations reached their nadir, although responsible elements in that party would no doubt go to enormous lengths to avoid anything of that kind. However, the truth remains that if the PNCR alienates the AFC it will be a one-term government, and will confirm the opposition’s warnings about how the PNC treats coalition partners, as was demonstrated in the case of the United Force in 1968.
A coalition as fragile as this one will have to be worked at, and efforts made to ensure there is genuine dialogue, and most of all, that agreements are punctiliously adhered to. The public is not convinced that this is happening, more especially since there have already been deviations from the Cummingsburg Accord, among other things. As it is they run the danger of reviving a deep-rooted fear in some segments of the population, that no matter what is said to the contrary, the old PNC’s penchant for the authoritarian approach is still alive underneath the surface. At the very minimum lack of true debate within the coalition makes all the talk of inclusiveness meaningless. If you cannot include your partners, how will you include anyone else outside that framework?
As mentioned above, along with this sense of a lack of unity, goes a lack of a sense of direction. President David Granger, it is true, has been hit with some major issues which descended without warning: first the flooding, and more ominously, Venezuela. The flooding crisis has been handled admirably so far by Minister David Patterson, perhaps the star turn in the government, but the Venezuelan matter has required far more of the Head of State’s personal attention. He has, it is true, been travelling to conferences, summits and the like giving some admirable addresses, although one can only hope that he would hurry up and name an ambassador to Caracas, and get that embassy into some semblance of order to monitor what is happening next door, among other things.
That said, however, there is not a great sense that the President is in the process of welding together a cohesive team, all the members of which are pulling their oars in unison. Our presidency is not a ceremonial one, but an executive one, and even if he cannot manage the unwieldy cabinet he has created, he at least has to work closely with his major ministers, including those from the AFC and WPA to ensure consistency in policy, in addition to dealing with disaffection when it arises. Prior discussion and compromise may be a slower, more untidy process than the one to which the military is accustomed, but it is absolutely essential if this government is to survive.
No one expects a new government with no experience not to make mistakes when it starts out, and in this case, there are some very knotty problems to confront indeed. However, it is expected that this administration will be sensible, have its ear to the ground, not repeat mistakes it has made before, and make a serious effort to learn about best practices which it then would apply.
