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L.F.S. Burnham

Aug 13, 2010 Editorial

It is now twenty-five years that the first Executive President of Guyana – then only sixty-two – unexpectedly passed away while undergoing a routine operation at Georgetown Hospital. While it may still be too soon to comprehensively assess his legacy, we can yet consider the impact of his rather controversial innovations that still reverberate in our body politic.
Burnham made no bones about his drive for power. Rather candidly, he posited that any politician that denied this drive was at best naïve, or at worst, hypocritical. Without power, how else would they be in a position to accomplish the good they were promising all and sundry? But Burnham’s career suggests that power and politicians constitute a potent – and potentially explosive – mixture. Power, it appears must always be tempered and balanced by countervailing forces. Without this balance, power will inevitably corrupt the power holders.
As the leader of a minority, in a society voting along ethnic lines, Burnham introduced (and was facilitated by his backers – the US) electoral manipulation to retain power. His argument to his constituency was without such “innovations” they would be permanently excluded from the corridors of power by the majority. This position has gained much traction eighteen years after “free and fair” elections were forced upon his successor H.D. Hoyte. One lesson hopefully we may all agree on is that in a divided polity, power must not only be distributed equitably among the different groups but must be seen as being so distributed.
Burnham was unquestionably dedicated to the development of Guyana, but he demonstrated unquestionably that good intentions are not sufficient to realise such a contingency. As one that in his own life demonstrated the utility of education in catapulting the poor out of poverty, Burnham was committed to this route for our development. He nationalised the entire sector and made it free for all. We have learnt, however, that even for worthwhile aims you should not “hang your hat where your hand cannot reach”. The collapse of the economy ensured the collapse of the education system inevitably followed.
While his enemies might gloat at that economic collapse, even they would concede that Burnham’s innovations in this quarter were in sync with the zeitgeist of the times. It was not only the socialist policies that he adopted: the nationalisation of the “commanding heights of the economy” were in the same spirit of the funded programmes of the World Bank that encouraged a greater role of the state in the economy.
Loans flowed freely into the country as the western banks laundered the new OPEC riches: when the bottom fell out of the boom, the government was left holding the bag. The loans soon could not be serviced and that was the end of that.
Unpopular policies to conserve foreign currency such as restrictions on imports had to be imposed. One has to wonder whether the incumbent administration might be a bit too complacent about the build-up of new debt after the Burnhamite ones were written-off.
Corruption also became endemic during the Burnham years, and therein lies an object lesson for us. Because of the need to reward the party faithful to maintain his illegitimate hold on power, Burnham felt compelled to appoint supporters at all levels and in all spheres of activity. With eighty-percent of the economy in the hands of the state, political patronage became rampant and with that state of affairs, corruption followed as night followed day. A state is only as solid as its bureaucracy and once the criterion of merit is removed from the staffing of its personnel no one should be surprised at the cancer of corruption spreading its tentacles throughout the organs of state and civil society.
L.F.S. Burnham was a man of prodigious talent. But he was a man – as all of us are (in the generic sense). We are all fallible and as such we should avoid the hubris that usually accompanies the possession of power. With the possibility of being wrong, arrangements should be put in place for the widest possible inputs in national decision-making.

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