Last week Thursday (28/11/2019), the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) gave a preview of its strategic development plan for Guyana. One will have to await the complete documentation before making a substantial comment, but from an economic standpoint, the organisation does not appear to have broken much new ground.
Indeed, the GCCI’s major recommendation that successive governments should stay within the main parameters of a single development plan is noble, but a section of the trade union movement in Guyana has been making such a request for decades. Lately, based upon International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 144, in 2014 the Guyana Trades Union Council envisaged a medium to long term social partnership, the major objectives of which were the realisation of a stable rate of exchange; the maintenance of a stable industrial climate; the restructuring of the economy; the reduction of social disparities through increased employment; national commitment to increased productivity; the reduction of unemployment levels; achieving a balance between prices and incomes; consolidation of the process of tripartite consultation, and continually reducing crime levels (Future Notes, SN: 19/02/2014).
Perhaps the best known social partnership agreement was that in the Irish Republic, where the grave socio/economic conditions that existed in about 1987 forced the government to call upon the social partners to cooperate and agree upon a programme to regenerate the economy and improve social equality. That and subsequent agreements have been credited with significantly contributing to the transformation of Irish society and the economy. In our region, the best known successful effort at establishing a social partnership was to be found in Barbados. Perhaps these types of tripartite arrangements best express what in the field of development economics is now becoming more obvious.
‘There is a consensus emerging out of the combination of lived experience and scholarly research examining what drives economic growth and stability. … To believe that pure market mechanics will produce socially beneficial outcomes is to take the theoretical logic of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” too far. We need to recognize how economic power translates into political and social power, and reject old theories that treat the economy as a system governed by natural laws separate from society’s (Boushey, Heather How Inequality Constricts Our Economy and What We Can Do about It. (October 2019) Harvard University Press).’
Where politics is concerned, the GCCI is correct: the political system is broken, but one doubts very much if its suggestion that we return to essentially a colonial political construct: e.g. establishing a bicameral parliament, a titular presidency and professionalizing the public service, contains the answer. For us to make a proper assessment of its efficacy, the GCCI will have to explain what is wrong with the present system and how what it is proposing will solve the problem. This column has repeatedly claimed that what is basically wrong with our political system is the persistent wrongheaded attempt to force an essentially bicommunal society to live under a competitive liberal democratic political arrangement. At first glance, it does not appear to me that the GCCI’s proposals dealt with this issue but I will await its full publication before commenting further.
On 29 November, the day after the GCCI’s presentation, the PPP/C also provided a preview of its manifesto for the 2 March 2020 elections, and its two main leaders made some comments that require attention. Firstly, the PPP/C has decided to put constitutional reform, including considerations of various forms of shared governance (SG), through a wide-ranging reform process if it wins the 2020 elections (Demerara Waves, 29/11.2019). Please remember that prior to the 2015 elections, the present governing coalition parties made a similar promise that to date has not materialised. Indeed, the coalition has taken its duplicity to another level by claiming that its association with a gamut of electorally miniscule political arrangements and the Alliance for Change (AFC) constitutes the national unity government it promised, although absent from it is almost the entire body of Indians and their leadership!
Secondly, the PPP needs to go much further if we are to properly assess the value of its position. It needs to tell the people whether it supports shared governance and what is the form of the system it supports; by what specific times the constitutional reform process will begin and be completed and what kinds of sanctions it expects will be visited upon it if it fails to fulfill its promise. Furthermore, it needs also to say more about the process of arriving at the new constitution as any new constitution must be agreed upon by a consensual process that contains substantially all of us. The referendum is a majoritarian instrument that will not do for a country as ethnically configured as Guyana. Amerindians, for example, constitute over 11% of the population and should have real say about the actual content of the document if they are expected to live and respect it (Constitutional reform must be agreed upon by ‘substantially all’ of us. SN: 20/02/2013)
Thirdly, at the same forum Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo was promising constitutional reform, the PPP presidential candidate, Irfan Ali, was harping upon the old PPP/C mantra of the need to build trust and abide by uphold the constitution. ‘We cannot have political trust and we cannot build political trust and we cannot have inclusion if we do not first and foremost respect this document that speaks to this which is the constitution of our country. We cannot speak about bridging barriers, bridging gaps, involving people if we cannot respect the rule of law and understand that democracy is the only way that can lead us to a sustainable future’ (Demerara Waves, 29/11.2019).
This is a surprisingly naïve, ahistorical and illogical piece of conceptualisation. Given the country’s ethnic configuration trust will not be built in a political framework that forces the ethnic groups to compete with each other. In other words, the present distrust is unavoidable because Guyana’s type of ethnic formation is coupled with a competitive liberal democratic political system. Furthermore, no people will or should be expected to abide by a constitution that they believe is acting against their fundamental interest. That is why, in our context, constitutions must be continually reformed by way of a substantial consensual approach.
Fourthly, while its current stance on SG is also a noble effort, there are also good reasons why the PPP/C may also be attempting to hoodwink the Guyanese in relation to this issue. (1) a substantial number of Guyanese are now of the opinion that some form of SG is necessary if social peace is to be assured and governments held accountable, (2) with a relatively weak candidate, many of its supporters believe that the PNCR is likely to cause trouble if it is left out of the national governance process and thus are not particularly enthused about returning the PPP/C alone to government and (3) even a weak commitment to shared governance may be able to reduce the resolve of that significant group of Africans who believe the PPP/C should be kept out of office by any means.
Unless the PPP/C can properly clarify the issues above there is little value in its commitment. However, speculations aside, given the present electoral dissonance, if it is a genuine commitment to SG, it does open the possibility for a sensible pre-2020 election dialogue that could be extremely advantageous to all Guyanese.
