Dictatorship in the making

Sep 03, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Two developments within the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) should scare the living daylights out of all Guyanese, because they do suggest that Guyana is moving backwards towards the days of political authoritarianism. There is a link between what is happening at GECOM and what is happening in the government.
Guyanese stood quietly in 1976 when Burnham unfurled the Declaration of Sophia. They did not recognize the danger. They said nothing when he began to ensure that he controlled appointments within the public service and appointed more pliant service commissions. They did not see the danger. They did not recognize the plan to control all aspects of a person’s life, until it was too late.
By the time the 1980 came around, Burnham was in total control of everything a person did. He controlled what you ate by banning and restricting the importation of food items, including flour and split peas. He controlled how you dressed, by having government workers dress in shirt jacs and school children in Sanata cotton.
He even controlled, through the censor board, the movies which you could see and the music you could hear on the radio, even though some people are still in denial over this fact. He controlled what news you got through state ownership of the media.
Right now there are similar moves by the government to control things. They want to control appointments. They have employed a great number of geriatrics, but they have also sent home persons whom they are saying are getting on in age.
Guyanese, like their counterparts in 1976, said nothing when the plot unfolded to get rid of Carvil Duncan. They said nothing because they cannot see the link between the desperate desire to control service commissions and the political agenda to control what people see, do and think.
That system of total control, that system of authoritarianism, was sustained because the then PNC government also wielded control and domination over the Guyana Elections Commission – and used that control to rig elections. Those in power knew that they could not be removed, and therefore they were no longer politically accountable. And when you remove that check against power, you open your people to oppression and abuse.
Guyanese must look at the past and understand how things got to be the way they were. They must recognize the pattern which led to political authoritarianism and economic stagnation. That process began with the desire to control and dominate appointments to important institutions such as the service commissions, the judiciary, the Guyana Elections Commission and the Guyana Police Force.
We are witnessing a similar pattern under the coalition government. The machinations against Carvil Duncan were aimed at gaining control over not just the public service commission, but the judicial and police service commissions also, since the head of the public service commission also sits on the police service commission.
With that control, the government can exercise control over appointments. In other words, the government is prepared to undermine the independence of service commissions in order to determine appointments within the public service and police force.
But the government has also been attempting to manipulate judicial appointments. It delayed the appointments of judges which were made by the former judicial service commission, until it had orchestrated changes to the present judicial service commission, which it asked to review the recommendations, something that is unheard of in other jurisdictions.
The same government has written to the police service commission asking for appointments to be put on hold and the commission has interestingly complied. That commission will have no say in police promotions, because its life is about to expire and a new commission is going to be appointed by the government.
Guyanese must remember that the authoritarianism took hold in Guyana not just because of the undermining of the service commissions, but also in tandem with the control by the government of the elections machinery.
Guyana went from having one of the strongest economies in the Caribbean to becoming its poorest, a fate from which we have not recovered and probably will not recover until the oil begins to flow. There are consequences for the people with this control by the government of institutions which are supposed to be independent.
There is no Chairman of GECOM. The Commission is therefore inactive. The Commission cannot make appointments or oversee the work of the officers of GECOM. And this period is being used to create mischief within GECOM.
The advertisements have been pulled from Kaieteur News, because of this newspaper’s reporting on procurement decisions within GECOM. And the Deputy Chief Elections Officer, a critical office, turned up to work and found the locks of his office changed. He can only be dismissed at the behest of the Commission, but he has been constructively dismissed by those who do not have the power to do so.
Guyanese have to be aware of what is happening, because you will wake up one day and all you will have to give your children to drink is sugar water. Do not think this cannot happen. It happened before and it is going to happen again, unless the Guyanese people express their disapproval of the obsessive desire of the government to control and dominate public institutions.

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