HOW DEEP IS THIS RIFT?

Jun 25, 2008 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

No matter how unpopular a President is, no matter how much dislike a President attracts in society, no matter how deep is the level of apathy towards that President’s rule, a sitting President in Guyana can always find a friend within the private sector.

Towards the end of his rule, Forbes Burnham was a forlorn figure, highly unpopular and estranged from the masses. Yet, Burnham knew that at major social events the members of the bourgeoisie class would surround him like ants following sugar, and would feign their affection and respect.

Burnham knew that at the hour he was most alienated from his people, he could still find a friend within the bourgeoisie class.

Desmond Hoyte, his successor, found more than a friend in the private sector. He went further and actually got a group of prominent citizens to form a committee for the re-election of the President. Some individuals who today are close friends of the ruling party were highly prominent in that committee.

Sitting Presidents know that the private sector in Guyana is not an antagonistic force. Incumbents know they can always rely on the grouping to come to the Government’s rescue in times of need.

As happened at a social event recently, if the President gets up and says that he is a controversial figure and he does not mind because what does he have to lose at his age, there will be peals of approval from the audience, even though they are not certain what next he will say.

Well, things seem to be changing following the broadside that the President of Guyana delivered at Yesu Persaud during a recent social. Following that meeting, the official private sector grouping in Guyana — the Private Sector Commission — did something that it had never done before. It called on the President of Guyana to apologize to Yesu Persaud.

Now, it takes some gumption for any private sector grouping to demand an apology from a sitting President. However, it seems as if the slight against Persaud was so deeply felt that the Private Sector Commission decided that the President should apologize.

The grouping, of course, knows that it holds the moral high ground in this matter, because, even though the President had tried to imply that Persaud needed edification on the tax laws of Guyana, it turned out that the Government’s promise of tax holidays to the investors at Sanata were not in accordance with the existing laws of Guyana.

The Government found itself in an embarrassing situation of having to concede that it will need to amend the laws of Guyana in order to legitimize any tax holidays to the investors.

The demand by the PSC of Guyana is a significant development in Guyana’s history, something that is unprecedented and which probably signals that body’s absolute frustration with the Government.

Whatever criticisms of the Government the PSC has made in the past have been timorous and veiled, not as open and frontal as this recent demand for an apology.

This injunction follows closely on the heels of a spat between the President and another key private sector official over the Government’s purchase of the helicopters.

Now, with this latest incident, there is clear evidence of cracks in the relationship between the President and the private sector.Just how deep these fissures run, or if attempts will be made by the Government’s point man within the private sector to heal the rift, is left to be seen.

It is hardly likely, given the way Guyanese society is structured and the way things operate, for the private sector to make a clean break with a Government which, with each passing day, is becoming exasperating.

But perhaps, just perhaps, the private sector in Guyana, which has always had close ties with the diplomatic community, knows things that the average Guyanese does not know, and is trying to put distance between itself and the Government.

Postscript: I am told that pictures suspected to be from this newspaper’s collection are, without approval being given, finding themselves in another section of the press.

This is an ethical issue, and this newspaper, I am told, may be forced to instigate legal proceedings to prevent a recurrence.