2020 Elections must be about Guyanese Values and Principles

Aug 13, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I would like to continue my advocacy for a ‘One Party, One Term Government’ from 2020-2025. For the past 51 years our current organisational structure for governing the country has, for the most part failed, and I am of the strong view that we need to seriously consider a different and more effective and efficient organizational government structure, at least for a period. The current organisational structure has kept us polarized and largely impoverished, and has not really positioned the country to be competitive at a local, regional or global level.
The ‘One Party, One Term Government’ which I am proposing, will have a specific mandate for five years with specific targets to be achieve every six months and annually. An oversight body could be established to monitor and evaluate the government’s performance – essentially the achievement of targets. The oversight body will also have the authority to review, revise and reorganise aspects of the government in order to ensure that the right people are in the right places and that they are doing the right things, consistently.
The establishment of the ‘One Party, One Term Government’ could be done based on a petition signed by no less than 75 per cent of the electorate.
It is important to note that the proposed government will include parties which has the potential to qualify to participate in the elections and not necessarily any and every person who are of the view that they can manage and administer the country (I find it amazing, particularly when I travel abroad, the number of people who want to come back to Guyana and be President, Ministers, Mayors, etc. many of these people have never managed an organization before). Winston Churchill once said that ‘if I was able to see far it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants’. If any President is going to see and reach far in Guyana, they would need some giants upon whose shoulders they can stand. The sad part is that very few people want to be the giants.
I do believe that there are people from the Government and Opposition who can move this country forward but they must be force by the people to work together with a common purpose for the common good or the government is not the place for them. It is either we work together or stay out of government!
One of the tasks for the ‘One Party, One Term Government’ would be to change the current system of Government and Opposition. I am proposing that the new system become the Government and the ‘Wider Legislature’ or something in this context. The concept behind this idea is that the Opposition is also a part of the government, it is a key aspect of the Legislative Arm, and therefore has a fundamental role in oversight and accountability generally. However, the current system of the Opposition, in my view, by virtue of the name, has devalued the important purpose which the Opposition is intended to serve. Therefore the term ‘The Wider Legislature’ may give greater effect to the true intent and purpose of the Opposition as a body tasked foremost with ensuring accountability.
Today in Guyana, we have more persons with postgraduate qualifications – Masters degrees, PhD’s, etc., and the time has come for us to begin to see the positive impact of this body of higher knowledge – higher learning. This impact must be reflected in more practical ways – in the development and implementation of policies, strategies, programmes and projects where results can be incremental and measurable. By creating, enabling and reconstructing our institutions to make them functional thus giving rise to the culture and environment that is needed to make Guyana, in the first instance respected and in the second competitive. The impact must be reflected in a citizenry (individuals, families, communities and organisations) oriented and mobilized around the qualities and roles that are extremely vital to the process of the country achieving its goals and objectives.
There is a global shift in development and business from merely being responsible to ensuring more accountability. It is therefore imperative that as citizens we give serious thought to reconstructing our society more towards being accountable, and a fundament part of doing that is to reconfigure our systems and structures of governance/government.
Editor, I feel not only an obligation and a duty but a burden to advance these points since, like I have stated before, I have one citizenship, my Guyanese citizenship, therefore for me, it is imperative that Guyana works!
Finally, the 2020 elections must be about Guyanese values and principles. After 51 years of Independence, we must demand that our leaders reflect our values as a people! Any and everybody should not be allowed to lead us anymore, we have to mature and become more selective on matters of leadership generally but more so for governing the country.2020 will be our finest hour! The time has come for us to recreate a new institutional/organizational system of government/governance and usher in a more enlightened dispensation of politics in Guyana.
Citizen Audreyanna Thomas

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