At the dawn of what was both a new year and a new decade, President David Granger delivered the head of state’s customary address to the nation. It was, however, a somewhat curious presentation given that the country is due to go to the polls in two months’ time and that in the interim, he is heading what should be a caretaker administration. Seemingly oblivious to that reality, he nevertheless proceeded to declare the launch of a Decade of Development 2020-29, implying he was assuming not just that the coalition would win the coming election in March, but the one after that as well. Even some of his most enthusiastic supporters might have paused on hearing such a creative excursion into what most will regard as a murky future.
He could of course legitimately highlight the 50th anniversary of Guyana becoming a republic, an occasion which will be celebrated on February 23rd this year, and may be one of the reasons why March 2nd has been named the election date. “This is an occasion of national pride, deserving a grand celebration of the actualisation of our sovereignty,” President Granger told Guyanese, whom he urged to join in the celebration. Given the highly politicised context in which it will be occurring, however, one suspects the opposition will be a good deal less than wholehearted about throwing themselves into the festivities.
In addition, there will be quite a few people who will look askance at the likely expenditure involved, given that an unacceptable portion of the funds lavished on the Independence Jubilee were wasted on projects such as that at D’Urban Park.
For the rest, one can only speculate that the president’s speech constituted a preview of the government’s election manifesto, and if so, then this was not the time or the place to launch it. New Year’s Day is when a head of state speaks to all the people, opponents as well as believers, and when he should strive to avoid hewing to a partisan political line. In our current circumstances, that would probably have meant − the Jubilee apart – something bland and anodyne, along with reflections on the political process leading up to the election as well as the conduct of the election itself.
He did, in fact, make references to the latter in a manner which was entirely appropriate for the occasion, noting that “… the free exercise of our franchise will determine who we choose to manage the affairs of state over the next five years.” Voters must have wondered how they were to reconcile this with his statements indicating that the government was looking beyond 2020 and was making plans for the future.
The ‘manifesto’ part of his comments, it must be said, did not represent the first time he had used what should be a neutral occasion to make party political points. This time, his comments were premised on the transformation of Guyana’s economy which the exploitation of oil was expected to produce. He recited a number of developments which were directed at improving the quality of life for Guyanese, including in the fields of education, economic growth, constitutional reform, good governance, social protection, human safety, development of the Indigenous people, development of the energy sector, environmental protection and better infrastructure. He then went on to say, “We can look forward to living in a country which enjoys high levels of growth and human development and with accountable government and greater equality. Constitutional reform will allow for the easier resolution of political differences.”
Whether his expectations of ushering all this in will be borne out will have to await events, but as with all promises from politicians going into a national election, the electorate will assess the likelihood of it coming to fruition mostly on the basis of a past record. And it is here that the unapologetically optimistic president will have to confront the challenge of the scepticism of a substantial segment of the populace. Apart from the fact that he seems impervious to the disastrous handling of the sugar industry by his government, rampant crime and no moves towards greater social cohesion (among various other things), what will strike many observers above all else is his stated commitment to constitutional reform, which will certainly not be happening in the next two months. He has elaborated on this in encounters with some other sectors of the media.
His problem is that the 2015 coalition manifesto promised the establishment of a Constitution Reform Commission, with the powers to hold consultations, make amendments and draft a bill. This was to take place within three months of the coalition taking office. It did not happen, and instead the administration set up a steering committee chaired by Mr Nigel Hughes. The report produced by that body was never made public, and subsequent to that the government invited a UN team to evaluate conditions for constitutional reform, which was widely seen as a means of stalling the process. That report too was not placed in the public arena.
Finally, a Constitutional Reform Consultative Commission Bill was tabled in Parliament in July 2017, and then was put before the Parliamentary Standing Committee for Constitution Reform, which is chaired by Attorney General Basil Williams. After that, nothing. Considering that opposition members also sit on that committee, it must be presumed that neither of the major parties had any great incentive to seek constitutional change. One of the undertakings given in the coalition’s 2015 manifesto was that the powers of the president would be reduced. Could it be that the possibility of this in particular served as an inhibition to seeking wider reform? Certainly, the head of state has seemed to chafe sometimes against legal restraints on his actions.
That President Granger at the end of his term is now emphasising his party’s adherence again to constitutional reform in a New Year talk to the nation might suggest that he may have half an eye to the plethora of small parties which have sprung up, most of which are advocating amendments to our Constitution of one kind or another. The government now cannot be seen to be opposed, although whether the electorate will take it seriously given what has transpired, remains to be seen.
In the end, some of the president’s statements to the nation had something of a Mary Poppins quality about them. The Decade of Development, he told Guyanese, would accelerate the country’s four transformative processes – the ‘green state’, the ‘digital state’, the ‘petroleum state’ and an education nation. There are not a few voters who probably would have had only a vague notion of what he was talking about, and would have had no particular drive to find out the details.
His ruminations on the “good life” for all were clear enough, involving as they did the eradication of extreme poverty and the reduction of class, racial and geographic inequalities. “The ultimate measure of the good life is happy communities, happy households and happy people,” he said. All that can be remarked is that there will be few inhabitants of this nation who depend on any politician to deliver that, even if it was conveyed in a New Year address.
