What have we learnt from 2013?

Jan 09, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

If there was anything last year that was graphic in the eyes of the people of Guyana and Guyanese who live in other countries, was the stark contrast between the behaviour of the Executive in Guyana and the United States in relation to the Legislature.
In the US, one part of the Legislature, the House of Representative, legally shut down governmental spending, meaning that outside of defence operations, the Executive had no money to spend on state functions. The Executive was virtually crippled by the Legislature.
In another branch of the Legislature, the Republicans used the filibuster weapon to stop the Senate from voting on a Bill that the Executive wanted. The world saw the comical spectacle of Senator Cruz rambling on for 21 hours; the marathon included Cruz reading a bedtime children story as part of his delaying tactic.
Then as 2013 was about to come to an end, the two branches of the Legislature handed the Executive a bitter defeat. They passed a budget that denied unemployment benefits for 2014, much to the bitter chagrin of President Obama. While in the US, the Legislature showed the Executive who has power, according to the US Constitution, in Guyana, the roles were reversed.
In the Guyanese Parliament, even though the Guyana Constitution permits the Executive certain powers over the Legislature, the Executive in 2013 (as in 2012) was totally contemptuous of the National Assembly. Last year saw the biggest comedy on stage when the House voted for four Local Government Bills and the Executive refused assent to one of them with the Executive finally taking on the role of the judiciary by declaring one of the Bills unconstitutional.
In 2013, the judiciary continued its long tradition of questionable behaviour that would find rejection in most countries in the world. In a motion that is so vital to the value of electoral viability, filed in 2012, a decision is yet to be given and we are now in 2014. The Executive moved to the courts to deny the Legislature (not the opposition Parliament of which there is no such concept but the country’s Parliament) the right to remove certain allocations in the national budget referred to in political jargon as “cutting.”
Most disgracefully, this country went through another budget in 2013, and a judicial decision on the 2012 motion is yet to be handed down. Contrast this with a libel writ, the President of Guyana filed in September 2010, and by July of the next year, the case was being heard in court – a time span of eleven months from the time of filing to the date of hearing; surely a record in Guyana. So we are coming to a third national budget and there will be cuts again, and the nation is yet to hear from the judiciary on the cuts.
What have our ruling leaders, opposition politicians, business community, churches and civil society learned from the year that has passed into history? One may not be on exaggerated grounds if one says, nothing, and maybe we can qualify it by the adverb, “absolutely.”
First, we can discount the collective minds of the ruling cabal. People with state power who are corrupt and power drunk will not change because power destroys their rationality. They eventually go down either by being removed through street protest or are engineered out of office. Secondly, our Opposition politicians do not seem to understand that unless the Gandhian principle of non-cooperation with evil is applied to their politics, they will encourage more evil from those quarters. Once dictatorship is not threatened with a no-nonsense attitude it will not stop its use of naked power.
In 2013, civil society has been non-existent. Some may want to use the word tamed, but even that may not reflect reality of life in Guyana in 2013. The TUC and Red Thread are the only ones that seem to have a voice. The anti-homophobic group SASOD seems to be preoccupied with one human rights issue only –ending discrimination against homosexuality.
The Guyana Bar Association and the Guyana Press Association were completely reticent in 2013. Praise must be given to Transparency Guyana for holding a march against corruption. In 2013, the people of Guyana have learnt nothing from history and the years of authoritarian government under Presidents Forbes Burnham and Bharrat Jagdeo. We continue to be meek and sheepish and lose our rights and freedoms.
But then again Guyana can tire even Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. One can go so far, without being irreverent, and say that Guyana can even wear down God himself.

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