HOW DOES DONALD RAMOTAR WISH TO BE REMEMBERED?

Apr 28, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Leaders can either make history or be overcome by it. Every leader has to therefore decide where he or she stands, even if that leader is someone who incomprehensively decides that he/she has no interest in leaving his/her political mark.
In this enigma over leaving their mark on history, leaders are victims of circumstances, and specifically victims of the challenges they face. They may bring to bear their own personal qualities, values and styles on their leadership, but ultimately it is the challenges they face that shape their leadership and not the other way around.
When Desmond Hoyte succeeded Forbes Burnham he came to high office with a great deal of baggage, including a direct role in the suppression of food imports for the population. He was known as someone who played a role in the seizure of restricted food items that were desperately needed by the people.
When he took over, the challenges Hoyte faced forced him to put that record behind him. He inherited the Presidency of a country in which flour was virtually banned, where it was crime to have a loaf of bread made from wheaten flour. He faced the challenge of a nation where thousands were waking up and going to bed hungry, where many were suffering from not having a basic staple on their breakfast tables, a policy-decision which Hoyte shared responsibility for initiating, defending and, yes, enforcing.
His government was called a rice flour government. Within his party he was under pressure from the middle class who were urging him to release the nation from its suffering by restoring the importation of wheaten flour, potatoes and split peas. He was being told also that the restrictions on these items were enriching the supporters of the opposition who were in command of an illegal supply line for these basic food items.
The Americans were also applying pressure. They had long had financial interests in flour mills throughout the Caribbean and were willing to open up a supply line for wheat, providing the right political concessions were made.
Hoyte faced a difficult choice.  Burnham was unambiguous that Guyanese had to learn to live with rice flour. Hoyte therefore had to decide to go against a key policy of his founder-leader, one that he knew would bring great opposition from within his party, because it would also entail political concessions to the Americans who were waving the PL 480 plan in front of him at a time when the country was in dire economic straits.
This was the challenge that Hoyte faced. He took the courageous decision to end the restrictions on the importation of wheaten flour. In the process he had to appease the Americans by opening the economy and, more importantly, in banishing some of the old socialists that were close to Burnham.
He took the gamble recognizing that his political fortunes rested on the decision. In the end he came out popular for it and managed to receive 44% of the popular vote in the 1992 elections, a feat which no other leader of the PNC or the PNCR was ever able to repeat.
Hoyte’s decision to lift the food restrictions allowed him to become the darling of the business community. They even came together- including some that are now in the PPP camp and are the recipient of licences- to form a powerful committee for his re-election.
The workers also supported him because they always associated him with ending the threat of starvation. They  quickly forgot that he was one of the chief architects of the food ban on the 1970s and 1980s when every time the economy faced a bubble, the government panicked and went about slashing social expenditure and imposing austerity measures.
Hoyte did not allow the challenges he faced, or the baggage that he carried, to get the better of him. He confronted his challenges and allowed them to shape his response and in so doing, he enhanced his personal reputation from one of being a reluctant and uncharismatic leader to one whose supporters screamed, “Desmond!” when he took to the political platform.
No one is screaming “Donald!” now. They are waiting – and hoping that they do not have to wait in vain to see how one of the nicest individuals you can ever meet, will deal with the challenges of his presidency. Will he allow these challenges to overcome him or will he allow them to shape his responses?
Donald Ramotar inherited a situation in which radio, cable and television licences were distributed in a manner that has been described as arbitrary, capricious and irrational. Allowing these licences to go through will be tantamount to permitting these challenges to trump leadership.
Donald Ramotar faces his moment of truth. He has the opportunity to respond to the challenges he faces. He has the opportunity to show leadership. Leaders are defined by the way they respond, not to the good economic times, but to daunting challenges they face.
Donald Ramotar has the opportunity to put right this issue of the licences issued by his predecessor, which gave an unfair advantage to certain providers and which excludes consideration of the other applicants. He is now gifted the opportunity to show leadership and leadership with dignity and fair play.
He must have by now received word as to how disgruntled his party’s own supporters are by the revelations that are being made public about these licences. He must recall that if after six years of growth, his party’s core supporters opted in large numbers to stay away from the ballot in 2011, they are more likely to do so in greater numbers when the time comes for his re-election in 2016.
He must know that he will not gain a majority unless he courageously faces the challenges that confront him and makes bold and brash choices.
He has the opportunity to overturn these radio licences and thus show leadership. He should do so if only for the sake of his own political survival. Unless, of course, he is not interested in a second term and has committed himself to being a one-term president and to overseeing the loss of political power by the PPPC and the return to office of the rice flour party.

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