Now you see me, now you don’t!

Jun 25, 2013 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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The Government invited APNU and the AFC to visit road construction at the Amaila Falls. They went. They came back and had some positive things to say about the progress. How strategic this move was by an opposition that Guyanese feel have done little to stop the continuation of bad governance?
The question is why the Falls project?  After this visit where is next? Could it be Marriott? Then the airport extension; then the road programme all over Guyana? What comes out of all of this? The answer is nothing because Guyana’s problem is a winner- take-all system where ethnicity and power are the driving factors.
If you are going to secure a stable future where people feel that their country has sustenance for them, then democratic transition is the answer.
Democratic transition does not have to involve power-sharing. The term denotes the movement from winner-take all politics to the exercise of power where the pie is distributed in legal ways within a decent system that dispel anger, pessimism and hopeless.
The PPP since 1992 has practised exclusionary government. It is not Frederick Kissoon who says that. The Sunday Stabroek News editorial took wide swipes at the 1992 Jagan Government, accusing it of removing public servants if refused to live it and of putting party hacks as their replacements.
The Jagdeo oligarchy removed any remnants of responsible, decent government left by Burnham, Hoyte and the two Jagans. Nothing has changed since Mr. Jagdeo’s recklessly depraved venture into elected dictatorship. The departure set by Mr. Ramotar can only cause the two opposition parties to lose credibility and support.
Ramotar’s game can be referred to as piecemeal politics. Ramotar opens up the sections of the house where he wants the opposition to see the modest furniture. But he locks away the compartments where the resplendence, opulence and decadence are.
The visiting opposition needs to see the entire structure from ceiling to basement including the wine cellar where the expensive stuff that cost more than the UG budget is stashed away. The opposition has to operate within a realpolitik framework that is relentless. Only in that way can they serve Guyana.
When known critics condemn the opposition for silly politics, they are disliked but there are times when the opposition appears foolish in the eyes of people. It must be told when it is being outsmarted by the PPP.
Why go to the Falls road outside of a realpolitik blueprint? What both opposition parties need to do is to draft such a paper. The AFC came close to that when it told the Government we are not supporting your anti-laundering Bill unless some bad governance practices are dissolved. The AFC rightly asked for the delivery of the Procurement Commission among other conditionalities. This is practical politics. You do not give your adversary a gift without a quid pro quo. And you do that because this is what your constituencies want. Your supporters would endorse your gift-giving if they see their party receiving something in return.
The story of horrific and horrible governance has gone beyond imagination in this land. The opposition has to engage the PPP within a good governance package. It has to attach a long list of conditionalities whenever the Government reaches out on a specific project. The Amaila Falls road is a good example of when not to travel.
One suspects that the opposition has misread the minds of the Guyanese people. Both the AFC and APNU believe that if invited to examine the Marriott documents and they demand that other doors be opened, the public will accuse them of selfish politics because the Government is willing to be accountable but they make unreasonable demands.
If it so happens that the AFC and APNU think like this, then they are wrong. In every instance, if they put demands in response to specific invitations, the Guyanese people will support them. If the AFC and APNU had said they weren’t going to see the Falls road unless the President assents to Bill, open the books of NICIl, restructure the management of NCN, give Linden its television license, intervene in the Berbice fare structure, stop dismissing public servants based on lie detector tests etc, the people of Guyana would support them.
The opposition is looking foolish with the Government’s now you see me, now you don’t politics. The cancer of bad governance must be confronted in fundamentally radical ways.
The system of total violations not specific areas must be on the agenda of the AFC and APNU. Any other road is fraught with self-destructive danger for the opposition.
 

 

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