Dear Editor,
I refer to Herbert Allen’s letter of 16 August 2024 (Stabroek News) titled “Power sharing in Guyana” in which I quote “A matter has come up recently, that is proving to be quite confusing to many Guyanese. That specific matter is ‘power sharing in Guyana’. My question to Mr. Phillips is pointed, direct and very simple. APNU was in power 2015 – 2020. Could Mr. Phillips please tell us if he ever advocated for power sharing during this time? And could he please tell us, if he knows of any country in the world where power sharing is being done between the government and the opposition?”
I suspect the writer is a young person because since my return from South Africa in 2005, I have written or spoken about “shared governance” more than 200 times. As proof of this, I reference the article written in 2009 by David Hinds to Mr. Ralph Ramkarran in the Stabroek News (https://www.stabroeknews.com/2009/05/14/opinion/letters/why-did-mr-ramkarran-ignore-the-ppp’s past-embrace-of-power-sharing/) and I quote from that Letter
“Mr. Ramkarran pins power sharing on Mr. Eric Phillips who has in recent years been a lone soldier on this issue. But he pins it in a negative way, almost an insinuation that Phillips is an ultra-militant who simply hates the PPP. Let me, out of solidarity with Eric Phillips and true to my own perspective on governance and politics in Guyana, hereby declare that I too believe that power sharing is a fundamental right of each ethnic group in Guyana. In ethnic societies fundamental rights have to be seen in both individual and group terms. This is a central point in the much-discussed recent UN report on Guyana. If government and governance are rights and not privileges, all citizens have a right to share in their execution, evolution and deliberations and should not be barred intentionally or through institutional mechanisms. When democracy, through its rules and institutions, structurally excludes groups from meaningful participation it ceases to be democracy. In ethnic societies democracy cannot simply be majoritarian democracy; such majoritarianism has to be grounded in ethnic justice”
Perhaps the question Mr. Allen should be asking is why does a winner-take-all system result in ethnic exclusion in Guyana and is this in Guyana’s near- or short-term interest?
As a young person, I would like Mr. Allen to think for himself and not be caught up with the usual unenlightened garble in Guyana which always asks the question “did I speak about power sharing during the 2015-2020 period”, and I did.
This is why the daily conversations in Guyana are about who did what to who, when one political party or another was in power. Why not ask if a winner-take-all is the best governance architecture for Guyana? Ask about what is right and not about what some party or another did in the past. Be forward thinking and forward looking.
I hope you traverse the internet because you will realize there are many countries where power is shared including the United States of America.
Sincerely,
Eric Phillips
