Dear Editor,
The March 18 local government elections (LGE) will be a referendum on the APNU+AFC coalition, and this is unfortunate. It is unfortunate because those who spurn the government on that day will be doing so because they feel that the current administration has failed them. They will vote for a group or an independent candidate because they have somewhat lost trust in the current administration. They will also break ranks with the coalition and vote for some other person because they feel that the central government should not be involved in the administration of the local government.
I personally think that the government is too young to be a victim of the kind of thinking that will cause its supporters to lose faith in it. After 23 years, how could one expect an ad hoc group of virtual political neophytes to simultaneously navigate the administrative, infrastructural, social, financial, ethnic, and criminal doldrums this country is in? Could any of the executive’s critics comprehend the magnitude of the corrective measures that have to be concurrently enacted, in order to move this country, soundly and satisfactorily in the right direction?
Even finding persons who could help with the mammoth tasks is challenging. A few days after the government changed I met with one of the Vice Presidents on a national developmental matter I have been suggesting. With almost rehearsed precision he said to me, how do I know that if I hire you, you will not end up like a Fip Motilall or Surendra? Right at that moment I realized that the fear of failure and the desire to appear squeaky-clean, will stymie the developmental thrust this country needs. With all the latent skills and talents available to this administration – both locally and from the diaspora ‒ it will take a while for this country to really realize its true potential, if only because this government is bent on avoiding the negative pitfalls which characterized the dealings of the previous administration.
If someone in the upper echelons of this government does not know you and cannot vouch for you, the fear that you will embarrass the government – à la Fip Motilall and Surendra – is so morbid, that you will not be welcomed in. So while the grass is growing the horse is starving. But while this approach is sad and regressive, I do not think the government should be penalized for it. Like me, some people might have several logical arguments against this policy, but it will not remove the understandable fear this current administration has of not ever being cast in the same light of the last administration.
So while I might be shooting myself in my own foot as an independent candidate for the LGE, let me say for the record that I am prepared to give the current administration some more time to iron out the administrative kinks that they reached in assuming office and also, the administrative kinks that they have since created.
Editor, what I will not give the APNU+AFC coalition a pass on is their desire to field candidates in the LGE. It is this current administration that instituted a motion in the National Assembly to decentralize the government and the make the local government autonomous. Yet, this very same government is funding the campaign of its members to head the administration of the said local government. So what they have given us with one hand, they are working to snatch back with the other. In reality or by way of perception, this looks very bad.
As a result, the unnecessary quandary that the government has found itself in is that they are now up against two sets of opposition – the PPP plus the local groups and independent candidates. It would be instructive to note that most of the local groups and independent candidates, especially in Georgetown, are themselves former supporters of the central government. Now they have moved away and are actively seeking voters, encouraging them to also move away from allowing the APNU+AFC coalition to govern them at the local level.
This cannot be healthy for an administration which prides itself on coalition-style governance. By fielding its members in the LGE, the administration looks like now they are in power they want it all for themselves. If this overreach continues, the administration will find that come 2020 they will not only be up against the PPP but also many other factions of former supporters, some of whom who will get a taste of leadership come March 18.
If I were to advise the current administration, I would suggest that they do the magnanimous and right thing and suspend all their candidacies in the LGE. Allow the groups and independent candidates who supported the current administration to manage at the local government level. Then come 2020 they can extend an olive branch to them for their support of the coalition at the national level. Aside from this, 2020 might be politically blurry for the government as they might lose both corn and husk.
Yours faithfully,
Wendell Jeffrey,
Pastor
Independent
Candidate
Wortmanville/Werk-en-Rust District