Dear Editor,
Political commentators at home and abroad have sought to characterize Guyana as a ‘fascist state’, ‘practicing apartheid,’ ‘practicing racism’ and now as having ‘shades of autocracy.’ It was Dr. Ramcharan who wrote on August 27, 2024 that ‘shades of autocracy are evident in Guyana.’ But just as the three earlier characterizations were shot down, it looks like Ramcharran’s will suffer a similar fate. Ramcharan premised his conclusion on claims that the PPP/C government has; 1) carried out official inquisitions into the tax status of NGOs; 2) made calls for new laws to ‘regulate’ NGOs; 3) initiated public campaigns of vilification against particular NGOs and their leaders; 4) uttered ‘from the highest level admonitions of judges carrying out their duties in good faith.’ Attorney General and Minister of Justice Anil Nandlall, has effectively dismissed these contentions.
However, questions have been raised about how helpful was Ramcharan’s interpretation to the Guyanese Nation-State. More importantly, is the question as regards which constituency was his claim directed or even helpful? We know how helpful it will be for opposition forces, but what we do not know is how helpful his view was for external forces and to what end? These are searching questions that Ramcharan’s interpretation raises. In the circumstances, one thing is clear, based on comments by government spokespersons, Ramcharan’s characterization of the political situation in Guyana was certainly was not helpful to the PPP/C administration, on the contrary, what his contention did was to make political hay of claims made by the political opposition, certain NGOs and individuals as well as sections of the media.
Rather than grasping at Anne Applebaum’s cudgels to determine the symptoms of autocratic governance which she claims exists in “China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Nicaragua” – the usual
suspects in the playbook of the West, to whom they have an ideological fixation and an established narrative – Ramcharan for the sake of balance, could have shared, for the benefit of readers, real life authoritarianism or concrete steps in that direction in other countries. The alternative to early democracy was autocracy, a system where one person ruled on their own via bureaucratic subordinates whom they had recruited and remunerated. The word ‘autocracy’ is a bit of a misnomer in that no autocrat ever truly ruled on their own, though it does signify a different way of organising and exercising political power. The consummate autocrat is one that reigns irrespective to what society thinks, though experience has shown that society can frustrate in many ways any effort, creeping or otherwise to establish autocratic rule.
As a seasoned academic, Ramcharan could have referenced better examples where ‘shades of autocracy’ are so evident. Take for example Hungary, which lacks a long tradition of democratic rule and where illiberal actions and rule are common place. Or take a country like the US, where it has been surprising to see the illiberal actions taken most often as a result of executive orders. In his book, ‘The Decline And Fall Of The American Republic’ Bruce Ackerman, a prominent American legal scholar, wrote that; ‘illiberal actions as a result of executive orders was something that occurred under both Democratic and Republican administrations and that they carried the risk that the White House could become a ‘platform for charismatic extremism and bureaucratic lawlessness’.
During the current election campaign, fresh details were added to a Republican economic agenda that would concentrate more power in the hands of the president such as threatening to jail political opponents and to expel millions of undocumented immigrants in a “bloody story.” What is emerging is an approach what some scholars call ‘authoritarian capitalism.’ CNN’s Indian American journalist, Fareed Zakaria in his book; The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, claimed that ‘India was the largest illiberal democracy in the world.’ And in 2015 Zakaria in a reportage said that ‘Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had become a textbook case of illiberal democracy.’ Since 2016, the Philippines under presidents, Rodrigo Duterte and Bongbong Marcos, has been described as being in an illiberal democracy and as a worldwide capital and stronghold of illiberalism culturally and politically.
The economic record of authoritarians is mixed. On the good side, an authoritarian or autocratic leader who governs honestly can whip a poorly functioning economy into shape. The classic example is Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of modern Singapore. Autocracy has many faces; the ideological, the economic, the political and cultural and the educational. For example, authoritarianism views education as a way to instill in students the knowledge and skills deemed valuable by the autocrat. In this regard, no exam sat by Guyanese pupils or students are aimed at forcing students to comply with an autocracy and to provide the answers or the way of thinking that an autocracy wants.
Apparently, Dr. Ramcharan has seen the trees but not the forests. He fails to appreciate the Guyanese reality in its totality and instead focuses his attention on the four criteria mentioned earlier. As an academic, he should have juxtaposed the factors he consider to be ‘shades of an autocracy’ with the actions and public policies of government relative to the factors he raised in order to demonstrate the complexity of the phenomenon and to exhibit balance in his analysis. The idea is to leave readers to draw their own conclusion rather than unilaterally drawing a conclusion for them. Ramcharan’s skimmed approach to convince that there are ‘shades of autocracy’ in Guyana is not even remotely conceivable in a multi-party, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious democracy where there is no stifling of the media and where the rule of law, the principle of accountability, and the powers of the legislature and political parties are firmly entrenched in the constitution of Guyana.
Long before and after independence and republican status, the Guyanese society evolved creating an electoral democracy with contending social and political forces, who, while facing challenges at the political and industrial levels, nevertheless managed to establish a myriad of constraints to fight off the prolongation of PNC authoritarianism in Guyana. Moreover, in a globalized world of competing political and ideological forces, greater accessibility to information; a free press; the increasing redefining of non-interference in the internal affairs of states; enhanced military-civilian engagements; civilian oversight of the disciplinary services as well as institutional strengthening vertically and horizontally of the public services rendered to the three arms of the state, have cumulatively, helped dispel the claim of any shady or otherwise disguised drift towards authoritarianism in Guyana. On the contrary, what these measures have done is to help advance the conditions for the strengthening of democracy in Guyana.
In Guyana, there is no institutional harassment of political opponents nor targeting of opposition parties and individuals by the coercive apparatus of the state. No prominent critic of the PPP/C government was ever dispensed with summarily. Nor has the government had to rely on extra-legal means to silence its critics. The government of Guyana has not monopolized the best of the nations’ human capital. Of recent, because of the dynamism of the national economy, many workers have migrated from the public sector to the private sector. Nor has government deprived the populace access to multi-cultural nor educational avenues for the advancement of their skills and talents, religious practice nor commercial activities within the meaning of an autocracy. The ruling PPP/C is not known to be on the extreme right ideologically, experience has shown that it is parties of that type that are the principal ones known to move to the extreme and to establish an autocracy.
In Guyana, the rule of law, the principle of accountability; the powers of the legislature and the judiciary; the right of association and freedom of expression are firmly entrenched in the nation’s constitution. Government’s praxis in these areas should not be underestimated nor cast aside as propaganda. Practice is said to be the criterion of truth.
Sincerely,
Clement J. Rohee