OUT WITH THE OLD IN WITH THE OLD

Dec 06, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The new president has named his Cabinet, and as could have been expected, there have been some changes and additions from the outgoing one.
Some of the old ministers remained and some have been reshuffled. The President is constrained by having to ensure that the persons who are eventually named to the National Assembly should be in the main from the list of persons on the party’s list of candidates for the elections.
And since all the ministers of the government made the party’s list and since the parliamentary representatives will most likely include these Ministers, then it was inevitable that most of the old guard had to head back into the Cabinet.
This will obviously disappoint many who may had been hoping for quite a few fresh faces, but there are two additional reasons why these old faces had to be retained.
Many of these ministers are familiar with the programmes and policies that have been pursued over the years and which the PPP is likely to want to continue. The PPP is still in shock by its failure to dominate like the past elections, but while mistakes were made, its policy agenda is generally sound.
The policies have been good; their manner of implementation has been, however, riddled with controversy, and this would have cost the PPP some votes.
The PPP has run the most successful structural adjustment programme ever in the history of the IMF and World Bank. Guyana has been a successful case of following foreign prescriptions.
In addition, the present policies are not bad, provided the corruption and scandals can be rooted out. The new Cabinet takes office with the economy enjoying its best days ever and with Guyana being one of the best growing economies within the region.
As such, the PPP is not likely to feel any need to reinvent the wheel. There will obviously be a great deal of pressure on the new President to make certain sweeping changes in terms of some of the major projects that are in the pipeline, but it will not take much to buoy public confidence in these projects once certain agencies which have been at the centre of the controversies concerning these projects are revamped.
Despite the need for these changes, the overall policies of the PPP are likely to remain the same, and therefore, as was witnessed yesterday, many of the existing Ministers had to be retained to shepherd the process.
The second reason why most of the old Cabinet has been kept is because of the fact that this present government is likely to hold forth until such time as it goes back to the electorate for a renewal of its mandate, and hopefully this time, with the majority that eluded it just over a week ago.
Make no mistake about it. The present President is someone who can mend political fences, but already it is clear that the combined opposition may have too many ambitions and therefore is likely to become head-strong.
As such, new elections are probably going to be held within the next two years at the most. Consequently, the present administration is only going to be there in the capacity of overseeing the affairs of the country until such time as the PPP can correct the mistakes that led to it for the first time since 1992 being unable to attain a parliamentary majority.
For the combined opposition, there are going to be problems. APNU, for example, gave these elections its best shot and still was not able to prevail. In fact, as a partnership it gained a smaller share of the total votes cast than Desmond Hoyte gained in the 1992 and 1997 elections.
This is going to be deflating and suggests strongly that APNU needs a more solid partner in its partnership if it is ever going to hold the presidency of Guyana.
For the AFC which gained seven seats, there are also problems. It has won two additional seats which shows that it is growing with each election. There were many who felt that Khemraj Ramjattan would have cost the AFC votes. As it turned out, he and his team rallied their supporters and were able to increase the number of seats they gained this time.
With the middle class continuing to grow, the AFC is likely to improve with each election and perhaps one day be in a position to challenge both the PNCR and the PPP for the seat of government.
The PPP on the other hand will have to do a complete rethink of its humiliation this time around. While many of its supporters were lulled into a sense of complacency, this does not explain why the PPP failed to gain a majority.
When the true reasons are made known, the PPP is going to kick itself all over for its own failures to take corrective action earlier.
Interesting days lie ahead. For the PPP in many respects it will be business as usual, but if it hopes to effectively govern the country, then it has to take firm action in a number of areas, including how its party is organized and managed.

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