NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVE

Feb 03, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The Minister of Finance described the opposition’s contribution to the budget debate as being rambling, incoherent, at times inconsistent and at others belligerent. He described the contributions as exemplifying an opposition in disarray.
No one needed the budget debate to confirm the state of disorganization and disunity within the opposition. But at least one would have expected that for a major debate such as that on the National Budget, the opposition would have lifted its performance. It did not and justly deserved the strong words of admonishment from the Minister of Finance.
The opposition was a palpable failure during the first round of the debate and offered no alternative vision to the general direction in which the government is taking the economy. The opposition parliamentarians did offer some criticisms and alternative policies but these too did not constitute an alternative vision which is necessary if the electorate is going to be convinced that the opposition has what it takes to be trusted with the governance of this country.
Instead of outlining the need for a complete change in the economic direction of this country, the opposition was content to snipe and nitpick at the government’s policies of this year. But that hardly goes far enough and the absence of an alternative economic model suggests that if elected to power the opposition would continue with the same general economic direction which actually caused them to lose a great deal of support in the past.
Instead of picking the Budget apart and exposing its weak economic underpinnings, the opposition was content on labeling the budget as an election year budget packed with goodies to win votes.
It ought to know by now that in any election year, the budget would have always been packed with goodies. It is the role of the opposition to however go beyond this and point to the deeper implications of some of the policies that the government is pursuing. It did make some capital out of the failure of the sugar industry and the need for greater security in the society, but they felt far short of the quality of criticisms that one would expect of a vigilant and militant opposition.
The description of some projects as “cork balls” and white elephants   may have provided creative language and certainly caught attention but a more profound analysis of the Budget was expected from an opposition, which hopes to offer themselves later this year as an alternative to the electorate. The so- called white elephants are going to get up and start running.
The opposition seems to have missed the train with the implication that they are heading in the wrong direction not realizing that having stabilized the patient, administered the “builders”, the government has been able to discharge the economy in a very healthy state.
However, this is not to say there are not problems within, and to its credit the opposition did identify the thorny issue of corruption, which continues to bedevil the administration, and from which the opposition was expected to make far more political capital than they did during the debates.
There was the usual sniping about corruption, and this is indeed a contentious issue but the government got off very easily even on this account. Admittedly, the government was at times placed on the defensive such as when the issue of Pardoville was raised.
There was no alternative vision, no attempt to demonstrate the pitfalls of the model of economic development, which the PPP is pursuing. Interestingly also the opposition stayed clear of questioning the growth numbers, no doubt mindful that those who have cast aspersion on the GDP growth rate have offered no specifics as to why they believed that the numbers were not what it was supposed to be.
The opposition advisedly did not go down this route for had it done so it would have found itself in a situation of being embarrassed.
The opposition instead of offering itself as the hope for Guyana, seems in need of a rescue act since it failed to assemble the sort of arguments that would have allowed it to have been taken seriously in an election year.
That the opposition could not present a viable alternative to the government, even at the intellectual level, is deeply worrying, given the talent, which it has always boasted to have had.
The AFC’s Raphael Trotman’s presentation was conciliatory enough to be given commendation by the Minister but one suspects that had his presentation had more punch , the Minister would have been less restrained in showering praise.
This was a budget debate that exposed the limitations of the opposition and raises serious questions about their ability to offer a constructive alternative to the PPP.  At the best the opposition’s critique of the Budget can be said to have been timid and disappointing.
To compound matters, one of the leading representatives of the Alliance For Change had indicated that it would have been his last Budget speech. Yet his party is hoping this year to woo the voters to vote for their candidates in the elections. What signal is it sending to the supporters of the AFC when one of its main leaders is indicating that he will not be part of the parliamentary process after the elections?
Why should persons who wish to give their vote to the AFC bother any more with that party when one of its leaders is calling it quits?
What the debates are revealing so far is that there is no viable alternative to the PPP, that the ruling party has the situation under control and unless the opposition gets its act together is going to win the elections easily.

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