By Dr Bertrand Ramcharan
Maurice Odle’s 2024 book, An Eventful Life, carries some precious historical insights into Guyana’s predicament and future. It is also insightful into the life of a Guyanese who worked hard for an education, and then served Guyana, CARICOM, and the United Nations with heart.
Giving an insight into the mind of Forbes Burnham, Odle writes about his meeting in London in 1966 with Prime Minister Burnham. Burnham asked him what he would recommend to better serve Guyana other than what the PNC was then doing. Odle took the opportunity “to propose the power-sharing strategy that a New World Group publication had recommended a few months earlier”. He writes: Burnham responded that he was not prepared to go that route so early in his term of office and that what his African supporters expected was a period of consolidation and furtherance of their interests which had been neglected by the development strategies of both Premier Jagan and the previous colonial system.
Burnham added, “very pointedly, that if the PPP were ever to regain office, its pro-Indian economic policies would surely return”. Odle commented: “I was so shaken up by Burnham’s views, that when I returned home that evening I found great difficulty in falling asleep.”
Here we have an insight into the thinking that was influencing Burnham. Later in the book, we have a similar opening into the minds of Desmond Hoyte, Robert Corbin and Bharrat Jagdeo. Odle writes that after Desmond Hoyte lost the election in 1992, he “had be-come disillusioned about his primarily African supported PNC ever returning to power, given the ethnic nature of voting patterns.” Hoyte therefore “proposed ‘power sharing’ as a means of mitigating partisan rule. His successor, Robert Corbin, had announced a similar stance in Parliament. But, in 2003, the then President, Bharrat Jagdeo, rejected the power sharing idea, adding that the PNC was trying to gain power ‘through the back-door.’”
Jagdeo again rejected power sharing in 2006 and on subsequent occasions. As recently as 2023, according to Odle, Jagdeo at a Press Conference, was reported in the newspapers to have said that the PPP was not interested in shared governance with the PNC because of the absence of trust and that the two parties had “different values and a different development policy.”
Odle has some intriguing insights into the Coalition Government of 2015-2020. He opens his account by referring to the “hotly contested and controversial election” for the leadership of the PNC. He noted “that many thought Carl Greenidge had really won.” One wonders what the fate of Guyana might have been if Carl Greenidge had become President, with his extensive national and international experience. The fact that the PNC opened this episode with the rigging of its own election was an omen of things to come.
Odle thinks that the Coalition, whose main partner, the PNC, had been out of office for nearly twenty-three years “lacked experience in running a government.” Moreover, coalition-government had traditional weaknesses. He writes, tellingly, that “the Coalition Government apparently had the sanctimonious belief that, because of the supposedly virtuous and righteous nature of a power sharing type of Government (to hopefully include the PPP later), that it was destined to be in office for a few terms, nor realising that the PPP … was determined to ensure that it became a one term Government.”
Odle refers to what he thinks were some other factors that contributed to the defeat of the Coalition Government. First, he thought that the Government had “made the critical error of closing certain non-financially viable sugar estates, instead of privatising same and keeping them open until the purchaser(s) assumed ownership and control.”
Second, the Coalition Government “made the strategic error of failing to immediately embark on an ambitious infrastructure and related development plan that would quickly put money into the pockets of its poverty-stricken supporters.” He had advised the Minister of Finance to establish a National Council of Economic Advisers, but this advice was not acted upon.
Third, in Odle’s view, “the style of operations of the Coalition Government made for a public relations disaster”. “Within a month of their attaining office, they surreptitiously gave themselves (and the Opposition Members) a significant increase in salary”.
Fourth, “the Election campaign of the Coalition Government was weak and ineffective, and excessively reliant on making inroads into the indigenous Amerindian community, that accounted for only eleven percent of the voting population. Moreover, the style of the President was wooden and lacking in charisma”.
Odle comments: “For many, including myself, the electoral loss was a stunning blow to the notion of coalition ideology in a plural society like Guyana, in which there are two large ethnic groups of nearly equal size operating under a predominantly Westminster type political system, whereby ‘winner takes all’ in the sense that the Party that wins an election inherits Executive Power and, also, exercises Legislative Power.”
Odle concludes his book with some assessments that deserve fair consideration, coming as they do from someone who seems fair-minded in this book. He writes:
● After the Coalition Government lost power in 2020, the incoming PPP Government immediately had the Director of Public Prosecutions (who herself was a recipient of ‘Pradoville 2’ property) withdraw all charges against the current President, Irfaan Ali, a past President and current Vice-President, Bharrat Jagdeo, and current Minister of Finance…Ashni Singh, inter alia, rather than have their case tried in court and possibly win and enjoy vindication.
● In Guyana the present Govern-ment intimidates the Judiciary, overtly influences promotions and operations in the army hierarchy. Analysts speak of a creeping electoral dictatorship.
● The ‘One-Guyana’ slogan currently being trumpeted by the Party in power, the PPP, is reminiscent of what was proselytised by the PNC during their pre-1992 period in office: ‘One People, One Nation, One Destiny.’ They amount to mere buzzwords.
● With oil generated revenue being incorporated in Government budgeting for the first time in 2021, there have been accusations of partisanship in both the land distribution cum selection of contractors for infrastructure projects and, even, the distribution of funds to adversely affected and disadvantaged communities.
● The ‘Indian Dilemma’ and the ‘African Dilemma’ need to be addressed. While Indian representation in the police and the military (once so low as to give that Community grave concern for their safety and security) has increased both at the rank and file and leadership level, and representation in the public bureaucracy, and in even certain services, has reached near parity with Africans, the very low African share in the agricultural, manufacturing and commercial sectors (where Indians dominate) has remained virtually constant and it will take vastly increased entrepreneurial capacity on their part, and greater access to the banking system for this situation to fundamentally change.
● Ethnic (and political) disparities will continue to destabilise the social fabric of the society. Even the trade union system is split along ethnic lines.
● The very one-sided nature of the contract with Exxon and its partners, that was signed by the PNC led Coalition Government in 2016, constitutes a real problem. He laments: The PPP “seems to be on the side of the transnational corporation and has joined forces with ExxonMobil against the wishes of the population, in appealing the decision of a judge in favour of Guyana having full guarantee against liability for any oil spill damage.
He concludes the book: “Astonish-ingly, the Vice-President, Bharrat Jagdeo, at a press conference, emphatically stated that, ‘Our economic nationalism will not hold water in the new dispensation’. There remains a situation of massive Private Profits (for ExxonMobil) and significant risk/threat of calamitous Social Costs for Guyana. The struggle continues.”
