Dear Editor,
As a purely internal matter, the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) at its recent Congress took the far-reaching step of removing any references to Marxism/ Leninism and Socialism from its Constitution. This marks a watershed moment in the evolution of the party, no longer in the ideological straitjacket mandated by the late Dr. Cheddi and Cde. Janet Jagan, and long revered by the remaining Jaganites among its membership, a notable departure to the Great Beyond being the relatively recent passing of Dr. Roger Luncheon. May His Soul continue to Rest in Eternal Peace.
It is noteworthy that the leadership of the party has insisted on retaining its working-class orientation, while casting off from its ideological moorings. Thus, while the party it is said would still champion a fair and equitable society, workers’ rights and matters such as a role for trade unions – so long as they are not subject to alternative political control, it would seem – it is such rhetoric inter alia of the dictatorship of the proletariat, dialectical materialism and the withering away of the state, that one must assume would apparently now be dumped on the rubbish heap of its political history.
One may speculate as to the timing of this decision, and the push factors – political and economic, domestic and foreign – that brought about this seismic shift in the party’s policy. Doubtless, the political space to which Guyana today aspires on the international plane required a clear policy reorientation. Indeed the PPP in 2020 was not the same party that it was in 1963, with the US willing to support the former, after having conspired with the UK and other interested entities to deny the latter political power at the 1964 election.
It is a truism that it was a matter under various levels of consideration within the party over the passage of time. However there is no doubt that the prominent role of foreign direct investment (FDI), the exorcism of nationalisation from our investment framework, the freedom to repatriate profits, the embrace of the role of the private sector (foreign and domestic) as the engine of growth and the proclamation by the Government that “Guyana is open for business”, all run counter to the preponderance of state enterprises and the disfavour of private property and ownership and the profit motive, which characterized anti-capitalist political organisations of the past.
As stated, this seismic shift is an internal party matter; however, it may not have taken on the significance it deserves, had the PPP not been the party that currently forms the government of the day. With this in mind, I humbly beseech the powers that be to turn what may at another time have been a quantum leap, into a doable hop-step-and-jump, and go the full distance and remove the reference to socialism in the Guyana Constitution.
Specifically, Article 1, the marginal title of which is “The state in transition to socialism”, reads, ‘Guyana is an indivisible, secular, democratic sovereign state in the course of transition from capitalism to socialism….’ As Article 164 of the Constitution deeply entrenches this provision, it can be included as a Yes/No question at the bottom of the ballot paper in next year’s constitutionally due general election.
Some skeptics would posit that as the investors are coming anyhow, from both traditional and non-traditional sources, Article 1 of the Constitution does not act as a deterrent to our development trajectory being fueled by FDI and hence the amendment could be deemed to be unnecessary. Clearly, this argument did not resound with the Leonora party group at the Congress – which brought what party stalwart Mr. Clement Rohee termed a ‘historical’ resolution (I believe he meant ‘historic’) – nor, it would seem, with the collectivity of the party membership. Similarly, such skepticism should not find traction within the wider society, which awaits the upliftment out of poverty that FDI heralds.
The nation thus needs to be as bold and forthright as the party that forms the government of the day. The reference to the “transition” which was included in the 1980 Burnham Constitution decades ago and yet survived the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe in the 1990’s – while oligarchs and billionaires continue to proliferate in Moscow and Beijing respectively – must by now be seen to be as elusive as the long-proclaimed, aspirational “withering away of the state”. In fact, I am inclined to see this seminal move at the internal party level as a necessary precursor to the squaring of the ideological circle at the national level.
I cannot in all good conscience see the opposition objecting to such an obvious omission from our constitutional reform process, notwithstanding its own past flirtations with socialism or, for that matter, Mr. Norton’s own (continuing?) ideological groundings. Should there be soi-disant socialists still loitering within the leadership ramparts of the PNC, the aspiring Mr. Roysdale Forde, S.C, would perhaps most likely be met with the same bourgeois classist objections that were faced by Senior Counsel Ralph Ramkarran, on the other side of the political divide. This too, should be expunged forthwith.
This is a low-hanging fruit around which there ought to be swift and certain consensus, a “shoo-in” within the One Guyana initiative. It will also appease the “Guyana-watchers” and future investors that, in addition to Guyana being open for business, their investments will be secure and their profits protected.
Yours faithfully,
Neville J. Bissember
