In a short time, Guyana will begin a fresh cycle of the political tug of war falsely proclaimed as governance that at this point could well be never ending. The lack of inspirational leadership by the two major parties that have dominated the political landscape over the past 54 years has made this country’s path to progress a hard road to travel. For every mountain successfully climbed there have been numerous valleys in which to stumble.
The March 2 General and Regional Elections virtually took the country off a cliff and will perhaps be seen by posterity as one of the deeper gorges from which we struggled to extricate ourselves. The plague of one-upmanship that further taints this country’s messy racial politics did much to hinder that extraction and truly served to spread the muck around. Although, that was likely the objective.
There is much to be learned from the events of the last few months and the new government’s first moves will give an indication as to whether the lessons, the trauma, and the suffocating waiting were in vain. Truth be told, these same lessons have always been available, but have been ignored because rocking of the boat meant too many would fall off and that did not suit.
Look at our history, not much has changed. And this in no way discredits the efforts by the slightly growing group of champions who see the need for us to take a different path, who want better for our nation. But let us be honest, they are in the minority and likely to remain a small group for a long time to come.
The concept of power sharing has long been bandied about as the arrangement that would save or heal this country and it does have its merits. However, establishing a basis for power sharing requires some level of trust and there is little to none of that between the PPP/C and the APNU+AFC. To work, it would also need integrity, which is similarly in short supply.
At the same time, sane, long-suffering citizens are tired of the merry go-round racial politics that is geared towards maintaining power at the exclusion of unity. A government willing to crank this down must turn its immediate attention to real constitutional reform, not the half-baked effort from before that changed little.
Furthermore, the current model of the Elec-tions Commission serves no one. It is a convoluted mess that has the potential to be a political football and has been to the point that it is ragged. There are best practices in some countries where commissioners are representative of all political parties contesting elections or are eminent public figures renowned for political neutrality. Guyana desperately needs a new model and at this point either would do as anything would be better than what is.
The roads, bridges, jobs, and all the other manifesto and hustings promises are necessary too, but these are feel-good, surface issues that ultimately will not fix the deeper fissures that divide us. However much we tried in the past to deny that these exist, it would be impossible to do so now.
How long does it take to learn something? Judging from life and education cycles, one would imagine 20 years would do the trick. But if one is resistant then triple that time could go by with nothing but cosmetic change.
Guyana’s problems are deeply entrenched, but not insurmountable. Fixing them though, will take more travelling along that same hard road. The ride is not about to get smoother anytime soon. However, world history has shown that change can come about when there is a melding of grassroots and champions, creating a groundswell that is irrevocable.
