Freddie Kissoon column – Presidential contenders: US and Guyana

Jun 18, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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No democratic state is perfect. For all its fantastic influence throughout the world, US democracy has weak points that take away from its strong tradition of freedom. The judiciary in India is less politicized than that in the US, and is perhaps more independent of political pressures when compared to what obtains in the US.

With the penetration of the drug trade, and since 9/11, US judicial officers have had a prosecutorial attitude. Sweden is a more democratic nation than the US.

However, there are many unique features of American culture that rank far above others, one of which is their primary system for presidential contenders. It may be frowned upon as one of those so-called unusual things about the US. It may be classified as grotesquely long-winded and unnecessary. But, in the end, it contains a feature of accountability and openness that is intrinsic to freedom.

The primary system involves a long battle just to win your party’s permission to be its contender in the presidential battle. What it does that is so crucial to integrity in leadership is that it politically and ideologically strips the candidate to the bone. The space to hide is not there, and evasiveness causes self-destruction. Perhaps the priceless quality of the pre-presidential party contest is that the people choose, not the party bosses.

The world knows who the politicians are that will fight each other to be the American head of state in November 2008. But since November 2007, they announced their intention. Since that time, they had to face each other in debates and endure the relentless pursuit of the media. This is indeed a higher form of democracy. It empowers the people of the US.

They have a profound insight into the character of their leaders after what the leaders have gone through in order to win their respective party’s nomination. The American people know that Obama will not abandon Israel, will not be inclined to give tax breaks to the corporate sector, wants to have heath care for poorer Americans, will be inclined to relax the Cuba embargo, will use diplomacy to establish contacts with hostile countries.

This kind of superior political culture is what makes America more attractive comparatively. There are Third World leaders that rightly point to the deformities of American democracy, especially its jingoistic, violent foreign policy and institutionalised racism. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are names that automatically come to mind.

In Guyana, Mrs. Janet Jagan stands out as one of those Guyanese who are not in the least enamoured with American democracy. Her weekly column in her party newspaper is vivid testimony to that.

Despite their justified condemnation of the negative dimensions of American culture, these Third World crusaders have not brought forms of democracy to their own countries that are higher than what obtains in the US, thus the persistent success of American penetration of the world. The least said of Castro the better.

Mr. Castro is a tropical Mussolini. His rule has been fascist and despicable. Cuba is the largest indicator to date that the UN has failed the world.

The UN should have stopped Castro’s fascism a long time ago. Chavez is an emulator of Castro. Here in Guyana, Mrs. Jagan’s party is in power, and if you think her party has allowed for greater democracy, then you are immensely naïve. In Guyana, we are slowly losing the little that is left of our restored democracy. Look who is superior to whom.

The American people may finally elect a black president while Guyana continues to languish in the pathology of race politics, which Mrs. Jagan party’s has done nothing to diminish, even though it has been in power the past sixteen years.

What about our presidential contenders?  Mr. Jagdeo goes out in about two and a half years’ time. Yet, for all of those in the PPP leadership who often fault American political culture, there is no one in the PPP hierarchy at the moment who has the mental bravery, political will and moral obligation to declare his or her candidacy for the PPP’s 2011 slot.

None of them is willing to do what the politicians in the US do. They are afraid. They are scared of the media. They are intimidated by the trenchant questions they may face. They are unsure of what their colleagues might say about them.

So we do not know how they feel about so many crucial things in Guyana; for example, changing our Constitution, allowing more radio stations, empowering Parliament, bringing in a Freedom of Information Act, modernizing our ancient laws, and reaching out to the opposition.

We will not know who the contenders for Mr. Jagdeo’s seat are before 2011. We will wake up one morning in 2011 and see in the newspapers the picture of the anointed one. Which democracy is superior, American or Guyanese?  

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