In a public lecture, ‘The Despot Accomplice: how the West is aiding and abetting the decline of democracy’ at the London School of Economics a few days ago, Brian Klaas (http://www.lse.ac.uk/), among other things, made the point that 2006 was the peak year for democracy and that people are now losing faith in it. The West has essentially given up on democracy and even where it is being promoted, the baseline of acceptability is set too low. Take the cases of Belarus and Madagascar.
The former became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, and the country’s first and only directly elected president has been Aleksandr Lukashenko, who has consistently been accused of serious human rights violations and elections rigging. Of the parliamentary elections in September this year, it is reported that ‘The gap between the official data and the real turnout recorded by the observers made 31%. At some voting stations, the turnout was inflated several times. Thus, (while) 50 people voted at one of the voting stations in Minsk, the protocol claimed there had been 550!’ (Elections In Belarus Can Already Be Held Without Voters. https://charter97 .org/en/news/2016/9/22/ 223788/).
In 2004, the European Union placed heavy economic sanctions on the regime for its rights abuses but removed them in 2009 although little had changed. Klaas believes that the West is turning a blind eye to what is taking place because it is concerned about possible Russian reaction, and given the problems with the transition in Ukraine, has lost its appetite for democratic promotion.
In Madagascar, the West continues to certify elections knowing full well the extent to which they have been compromised. The army general who in 1992, kidnapped both the head of government and the leader of the opposition who were feuding over the timing of democratic elections, imprisoned them in an hotel until they arrived at an agreement and a date for the elections, accepted that electoral corruption is rampant. He claimed that the situation exists largely because the West is only interested in the shell of democracy once they can get access to the ‘meat’ i.e. the resources of a country!
What these cases suggest to me is that while the raison d’être of a state’s foreign policy remains the protection of its national interest, there are many instances where the promotion of human rights would not fundamentally affect a state’s interest and the West has been quite active in trying to utilise this space. The decline of democracy might have resulted from the fact that of late, the multi-polarity and complications of international society have made it much less amenable to unilateral Western action in favour of human rights in all theatres. However, since the baseline for acceptable democratic practice cannot be easily differentiated, it is set at the lowest possible acceptable level.
The APNU+AFC government came to office by the slimmest of majorities and is mainly supported by a minority racial group, 80% of whom thought the previous PPP/C government, also rooted in racial alliance, did not care for them. These people are determined that the PPP/C shall not return to government anytime soon. Yet the approach of its leadership since coming to government does not betray a sense of this urgency to permanently secure their interest by establishing a national consensus around relevant constitutional reforms.
For example, all other negatives aside, why did our historian president, who represents all Guyanese, recently take to the National Assembly to become essentially a narrator of a biased partisan historiography? Is this not precisely what many have repeatedly lambasted the leadership of the PPP/C for? Why could he not have taken the material at his disposal and instead of blaming the PPP/C for the 2005 floods (for which they are only partly to be blamed), provide the Guyanese people with an uplifting, Mandela-like, commentary of context, understanding and forgiveness?
And why thumb a nose at the PPP/C and many of the coalition’s non-core supporters by taking Cabinet to the army headquarters? The unintended consequence of such an action is to further diminish the AFC and leaves it only being able to fish with any degree of success in APNU’s pond. Mitigation of such actions is only possible if we accept that the decades of sectional propaganda have now brought us to a stage where even those usually in authority have become totally immune to the narrative and concerns of the ‘other’.
The question is: given the way the government of Guyana is behaving, does it see opportunity in exploiting this low democratic baseline? And if so, has it properly assessed the dangers inherent in attempting to do so? I hope that the ruling group recognises that in modern times, one can be disruptive of an unwanted government without leaving one’s office or being in the same country. The regime should also note that Venezuela has a lot more oil than Guyana, and look where it is today. The coalition would be best advised not to place its faith on our hydro-carbon future without establishing sensible governance mechanisms.
On the other hand, the leaders of the PPP/C, who not so long ago were accusing the West of being complicit in its removal from government, are now routinely calling upon it to hold the regime accountable as it strives to ‘take back’ the government in 2020. Please remember that this is the party that unleashed a feral blast against the West for doing precisely what people like Klaas are accusing them of not doing forcefully enough, i.e. promoting democracy against an undemocratic regime bent upon perennially dominating the national political space. So, does the PPP/C really believe that it has the moral political authority or has transformed itself sufficiently to impel the West to take it seriously when the politics is reasonably acceptable and the ‘meat’ is on its plate?
Here we have, then, a very tenuously empowered government alienating the non-core supporters who were largely responsible for bringing it to office, but which, notwithstanding its promises and continued rhetoric, is making no significant constitutional effort to construct on a more permanent basis the institutions that could secure the interest of its core supporters. On the other side, there is an overly optimistic opposition who, in the most unlikely event that it takes back the government, will again be unable to rule successfully and thus be tempted to again strive for political dominance.
Such is the sorry tale of Guyana. Political disassociation and turmoil will continue to be the norm unless and until we find political leadership able to gradually provide a real opening for our working together towards becoming one people and one nation with one destiny.
