Guyanese are now much wiser politically, and unlikely to be misled

Jul 15, 2014 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
The search for a governance model that reflects the will of all citizens has a long history dating back to the early days of Greek city states. However that search is still continuing without any real solution. For so long as people exist in the current mental state there will never be a governance mechanism that could be satisfactory to the population as a whole.
Perhaps the most extreme of that governance model was in the city of Athens, way back in time, where an assembly was drawn up from all the different ethnic groups who were represented in equal numbers to form the governing council. The council would then elect a President whose term in office was limited to one day without any possibility of re-election.
Such a mechanism would not easily lend itself to modern day political systems which are based on stability, continuity and change. The quest for a governance mechanism that would ensure the greatest good for the greatest number of people has always engaged the thinking of philosophers and political analysts, with varying degrees of success.
Plato, the early Greek philosopher, came up with the idea of the ‘philosopher king’ who was supposed to be trained at an early age to assume leadership roles. The belief was that a leader should be trained to conduct the affairs of state in addition to being wise. This combination of wisdom and knowledge was considered by Plato to be integral to good governance and leadership.
Later philosophers such as Hobbes, Burke and Rousseau, sought to find the right balance between individual freedoms and ensuring that such freedoms were not used to encroach on the freedom of others. The idea of a ‘social contract’ was seen as a way of ensuring that balance in which citizens agree by way of a social contract to give up some of their freedoms to a sovereign power in exchange for security of person and property.
Modern democracies are based on the will of the majority as the basis for governance. The will of the majority is expressed in periodic free and fair elections in which citizens freely elect individuals to govern them within the framework of the rule of law.
Finding a governance mechanism acceptable to all continues to remain a challenge to democracies all over the world. This is especially so in ethnically diverse societies such as ours, where voting behaviour is often clouded by considerations that have little to do with programmes and policies, but more to do with sectional interests such as ethnicity and race.
In the United States of America, there is the issue of class interests, where the vast majority of Blacks and Coloureds tend to vote for the Democratic Party, which is perceived to be more pro-labour in its programmes and policies. And since the vast majority of Blacks and Coloureds including a sizeable number of immigrants, are from the lower end of the social ladder, there is a convergence of race and class which, as the last Presidential elections in the United States demonstrated, worked in favour of the re-election of President Barack Obama.
In Guyana, the PPP has always embraced a pro-labour policy from the time it assumed the mantle of political governance in the first democratic elections under universal adult suffrage in 1953. The PPP, however, was removed from office in less than six months because of the working class orientation of the then regime led by the charismatic Dr. Cheddi Jagan.
The PPP has never departed from that working class orientation which it embraced some sixty-four years ago. In that regard, the PPP remained the only mass-based political party that has won power in three distinct periods of our pre-and post-colonial history, all on the basis of a working class platform.
It won elections in 1953 by a landslide victory, but as pointed out earlier, that victory was short lived because of a perceived fear that the policies of the government was too labour-oriented and therefore posed a threat to big business. The PPP again won elections in 1957 and 1964 – winning a parliamentary majority in all of the elections until 1964 when the Constitution was changed to allow for a change of the electoral system from first-past-the-post to that of proportional representation.
The point I am seeking to make is that the PPP with its pro-labour policies has always won free and fair elections, and because of the universalistic values embraced by the Party, was able to draw support from a wide spectrum of the Guyanese population.
However, in an attempt to weaken the Party and prevent it from winning elections, race and ethnicity was exploited and manipulated by reactionary elements, which resulted firstly in the split of the PPP in 1955, and later on, in the removal of the PPP from the seat of government in 1964, under what was described by former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson as a ‘fiddled constitutional arrangement’
This year marks fifty years since the PPP was manipulated out of office by way of an imposed electoral model of proportional representation. In a way, history is repeating itself with the current political configuration in Parliament, where attempts are once again being made by the combined opposition in parliament to use their parliamentary majority to bring down the PPP/C administration through constitutional means.
It remains to be seen how the opposition would react to their intention to move a no confidence motion against the current PPP/C government. One thing is certain and that is that the Guyanese people are much wiser politically today and are therefore much more unlikely to be misled by those who are seeking to turn back the clock of history.
Hydar Ally

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