Guyana has a real problem

Jun 20, 2019 Editorial

The CCJ decisions provided hard confirmation of several things. It confirms that this country, through its leaders, is going about matters in the wrong way. And that what prevails here is powered by the wrong motives for identical unacceptable objectives.
What Guyana is facing is not a constitutional problem, and one that demands higher judicial interpretation. No! What Guyana has is a political problem, that is a racial problem, which ends being a toxic environmental problem. And those are not best served by escalating to the heights of superior courts, and depending upon the truths that come therefrom.
At best, there are only the half measures of Pyrrhic victories. Or none at all, depending on expectations.
What the CCJ delivered is, in a nutshell, the sum of all the appeals and pleas of those few citizens who have insisted continuously that hard decisions about harder ventures have to be finalized and implemented. Must be made to work.
First, it was the urging and slap to get back to the table (using a different format) in joint sessions to arrive at shared decisions. As has been encouraged before, the table is the place to consider cooperating towards compromising with the objective of consensus-building to get somewhere closer to a shared vision.
Is that not what the CCJ forced through? “The president and opposition leader must communicate in good faith to arrive at a list of six names that are acceptable to the president after which the list would be formally submitted to the president.” if that is not the table of agreement, then nothing is.
Then, from the CCJ again: if the Opposition Leader “demonstrates a willingness to operate in good faith (in) the process outlined” then the president is effectively barred from making a unilateral appointment of a GECOM chair. Any reasonable person would have to agree that some degree of compromising would be necessary to get to what seems to be a workable state.
Everyone would have a hand and say in the runup to the last man (or woman) standing. That is, the chair selected.
Now there is this question for Guyanese citizens and Guyanese leaders to ponder: did matters have to come to this? Did all this time have to be wasted, passions spent, and posturing engaged in to be delivered the equivalent of a broadside to the head?
Get real, Guyanese! Get smart, leaders and people! Fix your problems. Commit to cleaning up the mess. Those are the messages.
Yet, in true Guyanese fashion, there is already the political sniping over registration and about who should do what and what has to happen. If there is a single lesson to be learned from the CCJ’s judgment it is this: compromise must become the order of the day.
A similar formula (compromise) may be necessary and applicable for top judicial appointments now locked in another death struggle. Something parallel (compromise) will have to be worked out about processes finalized and on the ground implementation.
And a near identical development (compromise yet again) be genuinely considered for the approaches to, management of, and exercise of power. Otherwise, it is merely resorting to endless rounds of appeals to higher judicial tribunals.
Any political group, and political leader, that insists upon the unilateralism of going it alone risks the impatience, wrath, and ultimatum of pivotal foreign powers. Put heads together and work out an arrangement that is inclusive just like what the CCJ determined: unilateralism is out; inclusiveness is in.
All bluster and posturing aside, it is hard to believe that any Guyanese leader (no matter what was promised to supporters or demanded by them) desires to be on the wrong side of the overseas bigshots. That could prove fatal.

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