A captain does not win games by singular effort

Feb 13, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
One of the leading questions in Guyana at this time is: who is the leader or captain? That, however, is not the pertinent question in multicultural Guyana, for that has led and will continue to lead to division and many lost opportunities for political and social progress. The short political history of Guyana has many episodes of this experience. And while you ponder that experience, let me remind you of the work of a real captain.
A captain does not win games by singular effort, for it is the collective membership working together as a team that ensures victory. Ask anyone working on a tug-of-war team. The captain is subsumed, while the collective drive and synchronized focus of the team trumps everything else. The cricket captain may not be a main bowler or batsman, for sometimes he may bat down the line or he, along with a tail-ender, may come to checkmate a crisis. In other words, the captain is only special when the others in the team perform at their best. Hence, as a team player you do not follow the leader; instead, you walk with him/her side by side; everyone contributes and challenges him/her to build a good ground game; to build a path to victory and build a vision to which all can aspire. So when the game is won, the team and its supporters send the postman, the captain, to collect the trophy on their behalf. So, instead of using a system with extensive or wide-ranging powers given to the captain, let us build a model that is based on collective responsibility, community capital, and a reduction in the captain’s power through power decentralization with frequent rotational leadership at all levels. The advantage of a rotation and term limited system is that it allows depth of leadership to prosper and community capital to be built, even as it cultivates new people and new ideas. In other words, experience matters in a political and social setting when many gain experience in a simultaneous manner; and the opposite of no progress is likely when only a few or one person has experience. Disrespect and contempt for people, and power-drunkenness are spawned in such a moribund environment.
Meanwhile, the current constitution and political system with the captain being the president is ruinous because political power is centralized in one position. Prorogation, an inadvertent constitutional holdover that is irrelevant in a democracy, is a good example where the voice of the people has been comprehensively snuffed out. This is your 1980 constitution at work Guyana; get rid of it; make this a priority in 2015.
Finally, the two-term limitation for the office of presidency is one part of building an effective governance model. The next component is decentralizing power back to the communities, followed by the timely accountability and enforceability of laws in all cases and communities where the public trust has been violated and national resources mismanaged. All those who aspire to lead cannot escape this requirement and the transformations required to such a new system is expected to be carried out by those in the current election and post-election cycles. Furthermore, the standard for good governance must be raised and be enforceable and the first one hundred days in office by the new government must show results in these areas; otherwise, Guyana will continue on its path as a failed state that cannot even get the rules right. So when the question is asked, how is that? The people will say through their collective voice and vote, job well done, play on!
C. Kenrick Hunte

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