‘The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist’ (John Maynard Keynes).
It is not important how and why it originated, but for decades on one issue there has been near unanimity: Indians do not want to be ruled by Africans and vice versa! Therefore, the question for us is, who rules? If you have a practical answer to this question then you will put an end to all the abnormal constitutional and other political manoeuvres!
The political disturbances that occurred in the aftermath of the 1997 elections were put to rest by the Herdmanston Accord and the St. Lucia Statement brokered by the Caribbean Community and signed by President Janet Jagan and Leader of the People’s National Congress (PNC), Mr. Desmond Hoyte, in 1998. The Herdmanston Accord called for the establishment of a Constitutional Reform Commission with a wide mandate and a broad-based membership drawn from representatives of political parties, the labour movement, religious organizations, the private sector, youth and other social partners. ‘Among the matters to be addressed by the Constitutional Reform Commission will be measures and arrangements for the improvement of race relations in Guyana, including the contribution which equal opportunities legislation and concepts drawn from the CARICOM Charter of Civil Society can contribute to the cause of justice, equity, and progress in Guyana.’
Not two years after he took the country to the political brink, forced the PPP/C to implement constitutional reforms and cut two years off the electoral term of Janet Jagan, Hugh Desmond Hoyte SC, a man well versed in the history of the British constitutional law and a consummate politician, decided that the constitution he had forced out of the PPP/C was defective and that Guyana needed shared executive governance.
If Keynes’ warning could be applied to Hoyte, it is also apt for the Caribbean legal and political luminaries who brokered the Herdmanston Accord and who recommended ‘measures and arrangements for the improvement of race relations in Guyana, including the contribution which equal opportunities legislation and concepts drawn from the CARICOM Charter of Civil Society can contribute to the cause of justice, equity, and progress in Guyana!’ The fact that Guyana was not a normal Caribbean country did not seem to have crossed their minds!
President Janet Jagan, essentially a political operative in a small underdeveloped political system, and certainly less intellectually equipped than all the above players, ran with what she knew and what many of us still believe. So far as she was concerned, democracy meant majority rule but the Africans were being stirred up by the wicked PNC and its acolytes who had to be marginalised and crushed. To attain this goal meant deviating from the Western types and principles of democracy, and introducing something akin to what Professor Sammy Smooha referred to as ‘ethnic democracy’ – a ‘distinct but a diminished type of democracy.’
Janet Jagan died about two years before the 2011 elections, and in my opinion, notwithstanding the smoke and mirrors, she controlled her party until the end. Indeed, after about a decade of effort, by the time she died the die had been cast and apart from its dysfunctions, one of which was to entrench African hatred for PPP rule, in economic and political terms, the project had achieved a significant level of success.
Then came the present coalition government with great promises, but its sending home of 7,000 sugar workers immediately confirm to the Indian community all it had been told over the years of the wickedness of African political rule. Some believe too that the commitment to shared governance made by APNU+AFC in their 2015 manifesto was largely a ruse to which that party could have retreated had it failed to wrench government from the PPP/C. If so, and those now in government believe that they could use their control of the state to further their partial interest, they truly do not understand their history or the dynamics of the our type of society.
Therefore, I believe it is fair to say that over the decades, one fact has been established. Those of Indian ethnicity do not want to be ruled by Africans and vice versa and these groups are too numerically significant and well placed for either of them to peacefully sufficiently restrict the aspirations of the other for self-rule. But the narrative above points to a second problem. We have not yet properly comprehended the political implications of the ethnic nature of our society and are still largely in the grip of inadequate political/constitutional theories.
The question for Guyana today as it has been for decades is, who rules? Any constitution that contains a theory of democracy that does not reconcile this question to the liking of both these groups is not worth the paper it is written upon. Constitutions are not made to legitimise the dictates of defunct and irrelevant political theorists or any part of a community; for them to work they must reflect the interests, wishes and aspirations of all the major forces in a society. On the very day that Desmond Hoyte, the leader of a significant ethnic group accepted that the present constitution was inadequate, the official erosion of its legitimacy began, and what we are witnessing today is one explication of its logical consequences. In this context a solution to the present ‘constitutional crisis’ would at best be a temporary relief and there will be many more crises until we formalise ‘who rules’ in a manner acceptable to all.
