Writing in this newspaper last week Dr Bertrand Ramcharan reflected on Guyana’s future political path in terms of democracy or autocracy. He adverted to two prominent historical facts: firstly that the PNC had a record of subverting elections, and secondly that the PPP’s record was one of autocratic tendencies.
He took as his starting point a recently published work by Anne Applebaum entitled Autocracy Inc. on which he relied for the symptoms of autocratic governance. He cited her thesis which referred to “the strongmen who lead Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Nicaragua” and others, who had moved away from “notions of constitutional governance, the rule of law, the concept of shared human dignity, and universal values of human rights.”
When considering Guyana within the framework of Autocracy Inc, the PNC and its various later formulations presented Dr Ramcharan with few challenges of analysis. The simple reason as stated earlier is that with the exception of 2015, the party resorted to fraudulent elections, and in Burnham days adopted measures to maintain itself in power reflective of an autocratic mindset. Since 1992, he said, there had been “varying shades of instability” around each election held.
The most recent example of a rigging mentality he gave was the attempt of 2020, although he might have noted the fact that APNU+AFC’s anti-democratic disposition as a government was apparent even before this, when it employed a number of stratagems to avoid calling an election following its loss of a vote of no confidence in 2018. Had it gone to the polls when it should have done, it would have expunged some of its unsavoury history, and would have shown up the PPP’s democratic shortcomings when in a similar situation it prorogued Parliament in 2014 to avoid a general election.
And as for the “shades of autocracy” in the current environment, Dr Ramcharan alighted on the matter of NGOs, quoting Applebaum’s example of Venezuela’s law allowing the government to dissolve NGOs and threatening their members with heavy fines for transgressing a catalogue of arbitrary obligations. In Guyana, he wrote, there had recently been inquiries into the tax status of NGOs, calls to regulate them, and vituperative onslaughts against some of them as well as their leaders. Even judges, he added, acting in good faith, had been subject to rebukes at the “highest level”.
There should perhaps be one caveat about the proposal to regulate NGOs. No one has seen the draft legislation as yet, so it is too early to comment on it. Mr Mike McCormack of GHRA is on record as saying that what his organization was looking for was “a simplified form of registration.” While they recognized that it was important for a country to know who the agents responsible for the handling the funding of NGOs were, they also wanted their independence to be recognized and not to be threatened by government. The current registration arrangements were unsatisfactory, he explained, because two forms of that fell under ministries and one form meant registering as a business.
While Dr Ramcharan did not elaborate he did make reference to other “shades”, such as Parliament’s examination of government’s decisions and actions, which was at a minimum, and the almost total lack of consultation with the opposition. “Oil money has made the Government flush with funds for information campaigns,” he said, while an “Oracle” in the PPP makes declarations about everything.
President Irfaan Ali was clearly indignant, insisting that his was the most inclusive government of all, “the most community-based government.” He went on to say that they consulted with the people and that the government “was elected by the people based on a manifesto.” All they were doing, he said, was implementing that manifesto. As he has claimed before “apparently democracy excludes the government from defending itself. These great intellectuals … these great upholders of the shroud to democracy, only they have the god-given right to be critical and defend themselves.”
Somewhat contrarily, he then said that he didn’t have a problem with the criticisms, because that was a democratic right, but that bias also had to be highlighted. He then went on to give confirmation to Dr Ramcharan’s NGO observation by commenting that, “We don’t have a problem with the APA demonstrating this bias, but the population must know that. The population must know from what perspective they are speaking and the government has a responsibility to outline that.”
And this is the issue. NGOs and non-government critics in general make specific criticisms, and in normal exchanges these specifics are answered. But the President’s response to those who criticise is to accuse them of bias and launch into “public campaigns of vilification” as Dr Ramcharan calls them, without addressing the points they have made. And the biggest term of abuse in the Freedom House lexicon seems to be to accuse them of being a front for the opposition.
It is not just NGOs which the government has targeted, there are also those unions which are perceived as being associated with the opposition. After the President put his reputation on the line trying to bypass the Guyana Teachers’ Union, the teachers held out, and the government was forced in the end to negotiate with the union. Dr Ramcharan did not say so, but the ruling party has a problem with all autonomous institutions.
As it is the head of state can hardly gainsay Dr Ramcharan’s comment about the almost total lack of consultation with the opposition, and the “minimal scrutiny of governmental activity” by Parliament. But that is how the government wants it; the opposition is to be given as little political space as possible, the Constitution notwithstanding, on the justification, it must be inferred, that it is an unethical body. Alternatively, after six decades of confrontation with it, perhaps the ruling party believes that now it has oil money it has the means to send its ancient political opponent into a state of eclipse. Yet the opposition represents almost half the population.
And leaving aside the opposition, exactly who does the government consult? The President might tour around the country listening to people on the subject of community grounds, but there has been no public consultation on the larger issues, let alone on what development for the country should mean. As yesterday’s SN editorial observed, there is “good sense in political parties and civil society working to devise a common plan for the use of oil revenues and a determination of the weighting of spending on infrastructure, investment in diversifying away from oil and gas, subventions to the sugar industry, etc.” That level of consultation the ruling party strenuously avoids.
In terms of the global struggle between autocracy Inc and Democracy Inc, Dr Ramcharan still believes that “Guyana belongs squarely within the sphere of Democracy Inc.” He makes a distinction between parties and people, and is of the view that all Guyanese are freedom loving and in favour of democracy, the rule of law and respect for fundamental human rights. Perhaps. However, it has to be said that in our ethno-political world parties can overcome principles.
He believes that we need to negotiate a new system of governance, a view which he shares with many others. “Until Guyana succeeds in devising a trusted system of governance,” he wrote, “it will remain precariously poised between democracy and autocracy, with vibes of autocracy manifesting themselves in the governance of the country.” As is well known and as he observed, no political leader has yet risen to the challenge to take us to a system of governance in which every Guyanese would feel they had a stake.
