One Nation

Jul 27, 2014 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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Guyana is facing a human development crisis as a result of the PPPC’s chronic maladministration. Public protests have become the visible and voluble expressions of resistance against the PPPC’s mismanagement of public health, public security, public works and public schools. Guyana, in the new millennium, has become more unsafe and more unstable than ever before, owing to the high rate of crime and the low quality of life.
According to the UNDP Human Development Report 2014 – Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience – Guyana has been ranked 121st out of 187 countries.
Guyana is a corrupt country. The Transparency International Corruption Perception Index 2013, ranked us 136th out of 177 countries – 121 places behind Barbados. Growth is hampered by extensive corruption and lack of economic and employment opportunities.
Guyana is an unequal society. The PPPC administration’s attitudes and policies are harming social cohesion, undermining our sense of solidarity, impoverishing a large section of the population, alienating the hinterland regions and gradually creating ‘two nations’ instead of cementing One Nation.
Guyana’s population is in decline. Guyanese were shocked to learn that the nation’s population, according to preliminary results from the Report on the Guyana Population and Housing Census 2012, had fallen.
The results of the 2011 general and regional elections opened opportunities for real political, social and economic change. A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance For Change together polled 175,051 votes and the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC), 166,235 votes. These results gave the combined opposition a majority of one seat in the National Assembly.
The PPPC, rather than pursue a consensual policy of “inclusionary democracy” and cooperation with the opposition as prescribed in the Constitution, adopted a posture of confrontation. That approach, as you know, has failed. The fact is that Guyana is in a state of crisis. The governance crisis has been aggravated by the PPPC’s reluctance to acknowledge its minority status in the National Assembly and to join the majority in the movement towards establishing a government of national unity.
The President’s refusal to assent to certain bills passed by the Assembly has stuck like a bone in the throat of the Opposition. The Minister of Finance’s management of the nation’s finances has been a major source of political contention.
President Donald Ramotar took a great leap backwards at the 30th Congress of the People’s Progressive Party on 2nd August 2013 at Port Mourant. His vituperative tirade was a threat to the prospect of inclusionary democracy and a menace to the project for national unity.
He had the opportunity at the PPP’s first congress in five years to drop his party’s time-worn, winner-takes-all approach and adopt an inclusionary approach to governance. He lost it. He went instead on an unapologetic and uncompromising offensive against the Opposition in the National Assembly and the independent media.
The President’s ‘feral blast’ against the National Assembly, suggests that he has not comprehended the concept of cooperation. He did not seize the opportunity to encourage party members to pursue a more collaborative approach with the parliamentary majority for the good of the nation.
The President characterised the National Assembly as “a wound on the body politic of our nation…that is festering and reopening every time a sensible, moral and costed development project is stalled because the Opposition wants to hold back progress, or the cheap publicity, or promoting agendas inimical to our people.”
The PPPC has been struggling to diminish the authority of the National Assembly. It has challenged the Assembly’s legitimate decisions in the High Court. It has failed to assent to bills. It has spent money that was not approved by the Assembly. It has refused to adopt and implement the Assembly’s resolutions. It has deployed the state media as a weapon to wage war against the Opposition.
President Ramotar precipitated this crisis. He declared publicly, since 13th June 2012, that he had no intention of supporting any bill piloted by the Opposition. He said, “That is not the function of the opposition. They must respect what is their role…I am making it very clear that I will not assent to any bill that they carry unless it is with the full agreement of the executive and the full involvement of the executive.”
This is not democracy at all. It is autocracy.
Our ‘One Nation’ approach could be the main means of combining the talents of a wider constituency and of creating the conditions for social cooperation and economic progress. The three-fold purpose of such a project would be to reach a broad consensus on the goals of national development, to establish a sustainable institutional architecture and to create effective policy instruments for the achievement of our common objectives.
Our One Nation project shows how our policy programme will be relevant to people’s everyday experiences and expectations. Our resilient and resourceful people and communities are eager to play their part in rebuilding our country as One Nation.
Our One Nation project will be the basis for major sections of society – including the government; political opposition; trade unions; private sector and civil society – to come together to seek agreement on a broad national programme to move our country forward.
We can become ‘One Nation’ – one in which cooperation prevails over confrontation and national integration over communal disintegration.

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