The PNC governmental leadership has undermined the spirit of the Coalition

Mar 25, 2018 Features / Columnists, Hinds' Sight with Dr. David Hinds

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By Dr. David Hinds

This column previously appeared in the Guyana Chronicle. The writer is now a contributor to the Kaieteur News.
Since the discontinuation of the Hinds and Lewis columns in the Guyana Chronicle two weeks ago, there has understandably been some discussion in the media on the merits and demerits of what has turned out to be more that a “little issue.”
Anyone with an ounce of political sense and knowledge of Guyanese politics could have predicted such a reaction. After all, the two columnists are fairly well-known politically. Those who ordered the removal of the columns either didn’t care about the backlash, simply have no political sense, or a combination of the two.
Most of those who have weighed in on the issue have called attention to the political dimension, including the role of the State-owned media and the worrying phenomenon of official disrespect for the right to free speech. Suffice to say that one thing is certain—this current government has gone the way of others before it in the crude misuse of the state media for partisan purposes and its disrespect for dissent.
Contrary to what some of the commentators, including the former president Donald Ramotar, would have us believe, there was good reason to believe that this government would at a minimum behave differently when it comes to treating with political critique and criticism, and the democratic management of power. It came to power against the background of five decades of authoritarian rule in a country that has the reputation of the most undemocratic state in the Anglophone Caribbean.
Guyana has had a long and sad history of authoritarian governance. The PNC took party paramountcy and one-party governance to absurd levels and in the process inevitably reached for systemic brutality, including naked violence, as an instrument of governance. The PPP retained that instrument and added to it undisguised ethnic domination and the criminalization of the State. It means therefore that our political culture had become prone to authoritarian rule. We changed governments but retained the authoritarian regime.
The task then was how to alter the regime and democratize it. That is why ousting the PPP in 2015 was a revolutionary act which began in 2011 with the denial of a parliamentary majority—a job that was finished in 2015 with the wresting of the presidency. This was deemed unthinkable before 2011—the ethnic dynamics rendered it almost impossible.
The PNC could not rig its way to power as it did in the 1960s—times had changed. It therefore took a difficult but necessary political realignment to make that change. A majority of the electorate had to be convinced that it was doable, and that the new incarnation of the PNC could be trusted to break with its past, once in government. The realignment took the form of Partnership Politics—a clear and present alternative to the One-Party rule of the PPP and its predecessor.
So, May 2015 was not just the electoral defeat of a party, it carried with it the burden of defeating five decades of abuse of power and taking Guyanese for granted. One was therefore justified in being at least cautiously optimistic about the new government. There were four deterrents to open authoritarianism that gave reason to believe that we could do better with the APNU-AFC government.
First, since the PPP had taken the country so far to the edge, it was unlikely that its successor would want to emulate that mode of governance, at least in the short to medium term. Second, unlike previous governments, this one included forces with demonstrated track records of defence against tyranny and advocacy of democratic rule. Third, no government from its first day in office has faced the kind of public scrutiny from the opposition, the media and civil society as this one. Fourth, given its very slim majority of one seat and 4,000 votes, the government would obviously be very wary of doing anything to alienate any section of the electorate.
The question one must ask, therefore, is what has gone wrong in three short years to make this government show an inclination towards high-handed rule. Freddie Kissoon has raised the issue of a creeping dictatorship—a suggestion that we would be foolish to ignore. My study of Guyana’s political history and the history of similar societies tells me that despite the four deterrents mentioned above, we are still in the authoritarian zone.
The problem to my mind lies in the state of the partnership. The PNC-WPA pact in the form of APNU has been undermined by the governmental section of the PNC leadership. I make the distinction between the governmental and the non-governmental sections, because there is not always harmonization between the two.
This is a trend that started with Hoyte when he took power and was perfected by Jagdeo, whereby the section of the party in the Cabinet and high government councils drive the direction of the party, with the non-governmental being merely passengers. This is the case with the present PNC–the section of the PNC that fought for and built APNU is not in government. The bulk of the PNC ministers had nothing to do with building APNU—they were either not around or were not supportive of moving towards a partnership. And the Cabinet is the only decision-making council of the Coalition.
Even before taking office, the new PNC leadership decided on a strategy of using APNU to get into office and then govern as PNC. This was pursued partly to calm the fears of those members who feared the emergence of APNU would weaken the party, and partly to continue the ideology of party paramountcy, which never died in the PNC. This strategy was carried over into the relationship with the AFC. This was not unexpected given the way big parties tend to operate in coalitions with smaller parties.
The WPA’s leadership was well aware of this strategy but felt that the removal of the PPP – which had become an existential threat to the country’s well-being – was a far more pressing consideration at that time.
Looking back, I think that the WPA may have underestimated the extent to which some PNC leaders were determined to actualize that strategy. There were also other objective considerations that came into play, such as the popularity of the government when it first came to power, the concern that WPA could be seen as spoilers, and limited, if any, delegate-representation in Cabinet.
So here we are in 2018 with the call to put the continuation of the WPA in government on the agenda. One PNC official has dismissed this call, suggesting that the WPA’s exit would not make a difference. One WPA leader has declared that he does not support the WPA’s exit. Where this goes would be determined in the coming months.
The AFC, which played a big role in the discontinuation of the Lewis and Hinds columns—a matter I plan to elaborate on in the not too distant future– would be drawn into this debate by default.
For now, any suggestion of the PNC winning an election by itself at both the local and the national levels is pure fiction. They say the AFC and WPA need the PNC. I say the PNC equally needs the WPA and the AFC. Guyana is better of with the PNC-AFC-WPA than with the PPP. But the survival of that partnership will depend on the PNC governmental leadership altering its strategy of unvarnished Coalition dominance and the AFC and WPA asserting themselves separately, and together, on this issue.
I end with this—the chatterers must ask themselves why the WPA is the most talked about six-man party in the world.

More of Dr. Hinds ‘writings and commentaries can be found on his YouTube Channel Hinds’ Sight: Dr. David Hinds’ Guyana-Caribbean Politics and on his website www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com. Send comments to [email protected]

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