Guyanese have no understanding of liberal democracy

Jun 22, 2019 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Liberal democracy is an extraterrestrial concept in Guyana. It is an unknown quantity which exists in an outer realm. Locals have very little understanding of what is democracy because they have never fully experienced democratic rule.
The greatest democratic achievement in Guyana was with the achievement of universal adult suffrage – the right of persons of voting age to vote regardless of wealth, income or race.
But that embryo became stillborn following the divorce between Jagan and Burnham. Democracy from then to 1964, was deformed by the ethnic competition for power.
Burnham destroyed whatever democratic prospects were possible. He rigged the 1968, the 1973 and the 1980 elections. He was followed by Hoyte who shamelessly did the same in 1985.
Not only were these elections rigged but institutions necessary for democracy were perverted. The free press was stifled and the media became entirely state-owned, the economy was put on a socialist path; the judiciary was made subservient to the party in power and the public service became an instrument of party patronage.
The election of October 5, 1992 did not see a return to democracy; it was a restoration only of electoral and parliamentary democracy. While the PPP had been in the vanguard of the struggle for 28 years, it really did not have a thorough understanding of liberal democracy having been attached to a more socialist understanding of democracy.
Liberal democracy was in the ascendency by 1992 and was to what is now known as inclusive democracy. But the PPPC had no clue about how to create a liberal democracy and therefore consoled itself into believing that mere free and fair elections were sufficient conditions for democratic government.
The PPPC was unable to ensure that took the African segment of population felt included in governance. And this is the dilemma which has faced all governments since 1992: how to ensure that the supporters of the opposition fell included. It is an ethnic dilemma and not purely a political dilemma.
The same dilemma has reared its head today. An African-dominated government is in power. The ruling parties, the PNCR and the AFC, have no understanding of democracy because they have no experience of it. And because of the ethnic polarization in which one party and one ethnic group invariably dominate the government, what we have in Guyana is ethnic rule.
Governance has been uprooted from democracy. The APNU did promise shared governance but when it got into office watered this down to some nebulous concept called social cohesion. There can be no social cohesion when half of the population always fee alienate from political power
New political formations such as A New and United Guyana (ANUG) have recognized this dilemma but they too do not have an understanding of liberal democracy and thus can provide no assurance or model of how they will adopt liberal democracy.
The smaller parties can offer no hope for democracy. The Guyanese people are not interested in democracy; they are interested in ethnic power. As such, parties which are not ethnic parties have fared badly and will continue to fare badly in elections. Their best hope is to try to hold the balance of power and to use that to entrench democratic reforms, including shared governance.
Today, democracy is being prostituted. The small group which controls the PPPC wants to get back in power to control the spoils of government. A small group which controls the APNU and the AFC are comfortable enjoying the perquisites of office and they do not want to be unseated.
And these parties are proficient in being manipulated their supporters in the furtherance of ethnic rule. There is no interest in democracy on either side of the political divide. What Guyanese want is to be ruled by their own and this because they have no understanding of liberal democracy.
No wonder then that we have this comical farce of the ruling parties, the APNU and the AFC, protesting for house-to-house registration when they have already approved billions of dollars for such an exercise. During the height of the criminal crime wave, the PPPC, then in government, had a protest against rising crime, an act, like what we are witnessing today, which represented a protest against themselves.
Meanwhile the masses believe they are in an ethnic struggle and that they should lend their efforts to that cause. If only they understood that the political parties which they support have long been dominated by a small cabal which rule in the interest of friends and families especially when it comes to contracts, jobs and scholarships.

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