The silence of two PPP supporters

Aug 21, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Dr. Randy Persaud who teaches at the American University in Washington, D.C loves to engage in political debates. He does a useful service to young Guyanese by so doing.

He does not fail to rejoin me when he disagrees with my observations on the PPP Government. In the May 4 issue of this paper, he rejects my thesis that the PPP Government has achieved hegemony over the wider society.

He let me know that “mo fyaah/slo fyaah” prevents the PPP from securing domination over the country. In the July 11 edition of SN he writes: “I have no disillusionment with the PPP, its leaders or with President Jagdeo. My support for the PPP and the President is based on their record of achievement.”

I wrote back and requested Dr. Persaud to enumerate the achievements of the PPP Government and/or President Jagdeo. From what I have been told, it looks like we have seen the last of Dr. Persaud in the letter columns of our newspapers.

I regret his absence which will weaken the publication of lively exchanges in our print media. It is surely a Herculean task for an academic to define and contextualize the wonderful positives of the PPP Government and/or President Jagdeo without embarrassing him/herself. One wouldn’t like to be in that person’s shoes.

It was a strategic mistake to have enunciated a position of support for the Government of Guyana when one knew that such a stance would have encouraged others to demand to see a balance sheet.

Closely following the disappearance of Dr. Persaud is one of the Peeping Toms that write in favour of the Government. This particular Peeping Tom did an appallingly egregious thing in his column of July 30, 2008.

We must reply to these propagandistic banalities because young minds may imbibe the false concepts in them. This particular Peeping Tom was unbelievable. He took the theory of Dr. Fareed Zakaria who argues that since the spread of abertura or perestroika (Spanish and Russian terms meaning democratic opening up of politically repressed society) in the eighties, free and fair elections have not resulted in the strengthening of freedom in those countries.

Dr. Zakaria explains that what has emerged in those territories is elected autocracy (Dr. Zakaria’s term). From reading Zakaria is it clear that Guyana is one of the countries that have elected autocracy. I used the term, elected dictatorship.

Stung by the formidable theorizing of Zakaria, the pro-PPP Peeping Tom did a terrible thing. In his column, he deliberately distorted what Zakaria had posited about the failure of free elections in places like Antigua, Russia, Guyana, Venezuela, the Serbian enclave of Bosnia among many others. I replied and carefully delineated the description and analysis of the man’s work.

I went so far to quote the author as advising the American Government not to place too much emphasis on free and fair elections in the Third World but to concentrate their efforts on building public institutions where freedom resides, for example, the judiciary and the rule of law. Zakaria is a very influential academic voice in the US and perhaps the Americans are taking his advice.

Some people feel that the future shape of US interests in Guyana may not be concerned with free elections anymore but may take the form of helping to finance the independence of the judiciary, Parliament and other avenues of what Dr. Zakaria refers to as constitutional liberalism.

Let’s quote the theorist: “Today, in the face of a spreading virus of illiberalism, the most useful role that the international community, and more importantly, the United States can play is – instead of searching for new lands to democratize and new places to hold elections – to consolidate democracy where it has taken root and to encourage the gradual development of constitutional liberalism across the globe.

Democracy without constitutional liberalism is not simply inadequate, but dangerous, bringing with it the erosion of liberty, the abuse of power, ethnic divisions….” Doesn’t that sound like Guyana the theorist is referring to?

Our pro-PPP Peeping Tom has disappeared. He cannot counter Zakaria. It is possible this explains why the donor community (US, Canada and UK) were not concerned with verification of the list in the last election, and will be unmoved about charges of a padded list (which the WPA is currently making) in 2006 now that there are about fifty thousand names less which is what the new registration process has revealed.

If the US, the EU and Canada have accepted the Zakaria thesis, then we will definitely see more American emphasis in Guyana on areas of constitutional, legislative and judicial freeing-up rather than transparent elections. Who cares about free elections when it doesn’t bring freedom?