ENCOURAGING!

Dec 23, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

 

 

The President of Guyana has started his presidency on an encouraging note. He has extended an olive branch to the opposition, agreed for consultations with them on the Budget, set up a team to review the Value Added Tax and has sent a signal that no one was above the law.
He also has a Facebook page in which he gives briefs of his activities, solicits the views of citizens and generally interfaces with the public. This is a highly informative medium through which the president is able to both explain at a personal level just what he is doing. But also he has tried to gauge the reaction of the public to issues.
This obviously is no substitute for an effective public relations unit but this will eventually come as will be the inevitable reform of the state media.
The President has been hard at work over the past few weeks since his inauguration. He has also found time to meet with the local diplomatic corps, government officials, representative of private sector organizations as well as opened a petrol station.
He has done these things in his short stint so far and has agreed to ongoing meetings with the opposition.
This shows in many respects the benefits of age when it comes to governance. The opposition is likely to find in Donald Ramotar a completely different proposition than they would under a Bharrat Jagdeo. And this has nothing to do with the fact that there is a minority government.
Rather, it has more to do with political maturity. As a mature person, Donald Ramotar is not the hasty, impetuous, suspicious leader. He is mature man with years of experience under his belt as someone who has come through the system of life and can identify with the concerns of the ordinary.
Donald Ramotar has always had the common touch and as the First Lady observed recently in an interview in the media, there is no pretence in him. What you see is what you get. He is a down- to -earth man, human like all of us are, prone of mistakes as all humans are, not perfect but still someone that even his fiercest of rivals can relate to.
There are many who were arguing for another young person to take over. But today Guyana is reaping the benefits of having matured leaders in all of the three main parliamentary parties.
That maturity has helped so far and will continue to help.
There is of course going to be problems. No one should expect that there will not be differences. In fact there are already differences. But look how these differences are being handled on all sides of the political divide. They are being dealt with by individuals who are matured men and who can get along well with each other despite their differences.
There is a certain camaraderie that is shared by old men that you do not find with younger persons.
Many wrongly presumed that it would be business and usual under the new president. They assumed that the principle of equality before the law would have been scuttled following the allegations leveled against persons who are associated with the ruling party. But so far this has not happened and the law has been allowed to take its due course.
Then when an allegation was made against the Top Cop, we saw how it was handled. There was no attempt to sweep this matter under the carpet.
Instead, a process was instituted that saw the Top Cop proceeding (we are told at his own request) and external help being sought for the investigations. This external help will remove the charges that the local police would be compromised in investigating their boss. The matter has been handled quite well by the new administration.
Then there was the committee that was established to examine the value added tax. This is another positive development and show that the president is extremely decisive and willing to make his own decisions.
One of the strong criticisms of the previous administration was that too many of the policy making was dictated to both directly and indirectly by external forces. So it is really  extremely refreshing when the new president is doing things without any pressure from any external forces.
A good rapport has been established with the opposition and the president has showed great statesmanship by not trying to rush the convening of parliament. In fact, he has publicly assured the opposition that he is not going to take advantage of any situation whereby opposition members may have already planned their Christmas vacation overseas.
As such, he has reached an agreement with them that parliament will not be convened until next year.
These are all good early signs. So far a good start has been made. But there is heavy weather ahead and the president’s patience and skills of negotiations are going to be tested as time goes by.

---

---