Building Democracy

Aug 24, 2008 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

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In a piece “For Democracy in Guyana” earlier this month, I alluded to a point I made in 1992 after the victory of the PPP at the polls – that Guyana was merely embarked on a “transition to democracy”.

I noted: “The transition process is not automatic…democracy has proven to be a most delicate plant to nurture, especially in the inhospitable soil of authoritarian structures.

The struggle of the people and the vision of their leaders have always defined the trajectory and range of the democratic transition. Guyana will be no exception.”

This fact that Guyana was entering its democratic transition from a regime (Hoyte’s PNC) that had gingerly begun the process of reforming the totalitarian deformations of the Burnhamite dictatorship has often been ignored by commentators.

The PPP contributed to the problem by aggressively asserting that they had “returned democracy” to Guyana in 1992.

They, and the commentators, underestimated the effect of “prior regime type” on the democratic transition and consolidation processes.

A few years back, the scholars Lintz and Stepan, surveyed transition regimes from three areas across the globe – Southern Europe, Eastern Europe (including Russia), and South America – and contrasted them to what they defined as “consolidated democracy”.

The latter, they asserted, is measured by behavioural, attitudinal and constitutional dimensions that indicate that democracy is being accepted by all forces in society as ‘the only game in town’.

It not only enjoys a functioning state, but the existence of ‘five other interconnected and mutually reinforcing conditions’: a civil society, a political society, the rule of law, a supportive state bureaucracy and an economic society.

Unlike, say the eventually successful democratising Spanish regime that enjoyed a “pacted transition” crafted with a moderate opposition, the Guyana democratic transition has been ruptured by elements that violently challenged (as some still do) the legitimacy of the present regime, which was elected into office according to rules agreed to by all political contenders.

The present regime, therefore, had the formidable task of ‘crafting democratic values and patterns of action in each of the five arenas of a democratic polity’ even while fending off various and sundry entrenched insurgencies.

This is not to say that the present administration has not committed its share of misreadings, missteps, mistakes, faux pas and excesses but the challenges cannot be swept under the rug.

However, one of the constants in the successful consolidation of democracy in post-authoritarian states has been the sterling contribution of individuals who were not drawn from the traditional “political society”, but rather from “civil society”.

And it is here where we have also been found wanting – in the reluctance of “ordinary citizens” to step up to the stumps and play their innings to construct their pillar in the consolidation of democracy – a viable and vibrant civil society as a counterpoise to the leviathan.

But while this may be the consequence of a post-authoritarian regime, there are encouraging signs that progress has been made.

I will use an example known to me personally to make my point, primarily because it concerns an ordinary person who rose to do astonishing things for his country and I hope the facts may inspire other ordinary citizens to rise to the needs of the moment.

An integral component of a democratic civil society is a vibrant press that is not afraid to knock down shibboleths and challenge entrenched interests.

In the post-1992 era, we have experienced this in the birth, growth and acceptance of the Kaieteur News as the newspaper for the people. And this success has been almost single-handedly the work of one man – Glenn Lall.

Glenn, out of Wakenaam and raised by a single mother, was hustling “sweeties” in Stabroek Market as a kid and like a host of other enterprising Guyanese, graduated into “trading” to fill the needs of a collapsed economy.

The Kaieteur News was simply a business venture that he was persuaded to fund by a newspaper reporter, who after the press arrived, promptly decamped Guyana for North America. Glenn found himself with a press on his hands and absolutely no knowledge of running one.

But the fraternity of “traders” from which he had graduated had a “never say die” credo: they had overcome too much against too many odds to hold otherwise.

One commentator once mocked a member of the fraternity as not knowing the capital of France, but even if that were so, if they needed something to make their business more successful and it was located in Paris, they knew how to get there by the quickest route and obtain the component at the cheapest price.

They did what it took to build their businesses. But in the case of Glenn Lall, and I am sure others of his clan, the business also built him.

I have been writing a column in KN for a decade now and I have seen up close, Glenn’s growth as a publisher and as a democratic patriot.

He was willing to give a voice to all the alienated and the outsiders of our society, without any elitist hang-up as to what was “proper”.

If it concerned the people, to Glenn it was proper. Glenn’s only caution to me, as a columnist, was to ensure that the facts were straight – opinions were unfettered once it was not libellous.

And finally came what for me represented his and his newspaper’s most signal contribution to the entrenchment of democracy in our country – his willingness to publish the disclosures on the Sanata Complex lease.

This act, I believe, will be compared to the willingness of the publisher of the Washington Post to publish the revelations of “Deep Throat” that eventually brought down the Nixon Presidency in the US. As with Mrs Graham, the principals in the cases were all known to Glenn and the decision to go public could not have been easy.

But in the end, duty to the country and its development came first: Guyana and its democratic transition can only be deepened.

The bar for the rest of civil society has now been raised in the building of democracy here: even if means taking on the wrath of powerfully vested interests. Even ordinary men can do extraordinary things if they are determined to “do the right thing”.

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