Dear Editor,
Tomorrow Guyana goes to the polls for the Local Government Elections (LGEs) to elect representatives for our 7 Municipalities; 10 RDCs and 65 NDCs. The devolution of governance away from the centre appears quite impressive in this adumbration and was the result of initiatives following the Constitutional Reform process in 1999 that had been precipitated by violent PNC street protests and ethnic violence. That reform process had introduced several “power sharing” mechanisms in the National Assembly, such as the Parliamentary Sectoral Committees.
The PPP and PNC then instituted a Special Committee on Local Government Reform for further power sharing by devolving more autonomy than articulated in the 1980 Constitutional enactments on Local Government. It took sixteen years for five new pieces of legislation—the Local Authorities (Elections) (Amendment) Act 2009, the Municipal and District Councils (Amendment) Act 2013, the Fiscal Transfers Act 2013, the Local Government Commission Act 2013 and the Local Government (Amendment) Act 2015—to be passed. While I have advocated for further devolution back to the old Village Council levels, it must be admitted that with further training of officials and funding through realistic rates and taxes plus Central Government subventions, we have a realistic opportunity to witness genuine grassroots democracy being practised.
But democratic governance has meant “representative government” after the size of the polities outgrew the Greek City-states and this demanded a mechanism for the selection of those representatives. This was the introduction of the franchise that was gradually expanded after much struggle to include all adults over eighteen. Political parties were formed to secure a majority of votes within a geographical constituency (FPTP) or an entire country (PR) to select those representatives. And it was accepted that the political parties could pretty much do whatever it took to woo those voters. In ancient Greece, Plato worried about demagogues beguiling the masses and in the modern American democracy, “Tammany Hall politics” and “boondoggles” entered the political lexicon to signal material inducements for votes. All was fair in love and war – and politics was war by other means.
In Guiana, by 1949, Cheddi Jagan and the PAC carefully crafted a multi-ethnic executive body for their about-to-be-launched PPP. They even had African Guyanese Executive member Ashton Chase move aside for the newly-minted lawyer and Guyana Scholar, Forbes Burnham, because he was seen as more popular among African Guyanese. It was therefore accepted in the newly democratising colony that citizens would tend to vote along ethnic lines. When Burnham split the national movement PPP in 1955, he was aware that his support was ethnically based and the following year, Jagan acknowledged that the former took most of the African support with him.
But to their credit, both leaders took great pains to signal they desired multi-ethnic support by enlisting other ethnic leaders in their executives. In one instance, Jagan actually manoeuvred to ensure African Guyanese Brindley Benn be elected as PPP chairman over the Indian Guyanese Balram Singh Rai. In the 1992 elections, the PPP adopted a “Civic” component and in 2001 the PNC followed suit with its “Reform” appendage to present multiracial appeal. At the 1992 elections the ethnic voting continued and with the re-introduction of LGEs in 1994, it extended to this level. As such, with the municipalities Georgetown and New Amsterdam having overwhelming African Guyanese majorities, the PNC retained control of their town councils. At no time did the two major parties desist from insisting they were “multiracial”, not only in their Executive makeup – notwithstanding accusations of “tokenism” – but also their programmes.
With a change of demographics after 2006, it was accepted that since no single ethnic group now commanded an absolute majority, efforts to attract cross-over ethnic votes intensified. The PNC coalesced with some minor parties to form APNU and in the 2011 they and the multiracial AFC checkmated the PPP. For the 2015 elections, the coalesced APNU and AFC campaigned heavily in “Indian” strongholds to secure crossover votes. Their efforts were successful.
It was David Granger who shot the new dispensation in the foot when he arbitrarily and unilaterally fired 7000 mostly Indian Guyanese sugar workers. The PPP’s return to government was thereby facilitated by them. It is therefore quite astonishing for the PNC/APNU and other opposition elements to be accusing the PPP of “raiding” their enclaves for votes as the “slave catchers” of yore.
This represents a dangerous turn in Guyanese democratic politics that is based on securing majorities from voters.
Sincerely,
Ravi Dev