Change of government, professionals and protection

Dec 13, 2020 Editorial

Kaieteur News – More and more, concerns are being expressed in the public domain about the fate of public servants when there is a change in government.
As experienced time and again in this country, when government changes a purge follows. No matter how nuanced or minimal, or concealed, these things come to light and they leave many misgivings in their wake. And when elections in Guyana deteriorate to the depths of the barbaric and bizarre, as occurred in this year’s contest, the prejudices and animosities spill over into the public service, with servants of a particular color, those of the losing kind are sent on their way.
As a practical matter, it is the norm of democratically run elections for the aftermath to be visited by bureaucratic bloodletting. At times, it can be severe and savaging, with the ugly occurring. As the Guyanese saying of the victors go “is we in power now, we in control of things.”
As said, it can be brutal, unsparing, and few finding favor. The more senior and sensitive the roles, the more likely it is that the outcome will be of get packing, get moving, get lost, and good riddance, too. Emotions run high; prejudices still higher.
In Guyana, this has assumed the ugly coloring of the thoroughly racial. There has occasionally been talking about doing something about electoral reform, constitutional reform, and other much-needed governmental reform. We think that these are overdue and should be made into front burner priorities engaging the highest levels of government with trustworthy and ethical people being a vital part of any objective toward and program of improvement.
Now the trustworthy and ethical is what brings us to this point of professionals in the public service, and what to do about them. That is, how they should be handled in the stormy and celebratory (and expectant, too) aftermath of elections in Guyana?
Without fail, this is what they have all been about in whatever cycles that have come to pass. Public service professionals are citizens, and not UFOs from some alien universe. They have beliefs, favorites, and those who favor them. To these, we add the constitutional guarantees of free choice, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and the freedom to vote in an environment that is fair and peaceful.

Those may be so, but regrettably, those have proven to be words on paper, and only go so far when the passions of closely contested and disputed elections spillover from elections politics into the business of clean and sober governance. Or to take the first line from the very first page out of the well-used book of victorious leaders, there is the regular ringing commitment to govern for all in the most generous definitions and expanses of inclusion and fairness. Unsurprisingly, that represents longstanding dishonesty, and has proven to be more of easy rhetoric and less to do with the realities and practices of triumphant political groups.

The first casualties are senior public servants for this is where government reach is most powerful. Our position is that those who actively campaigned publicly should resign or be asked to leave. Senior public servants have to be trusted to pursue policies and programs that maximize the reputation of sitting governments. Only the winning party’s own proven loyalists would have enough standing to fulfill the levels of credibility and confidence required.

On the other hand, those who have voiced a preference for this or that political group should not be made to pay any price. And the more skilled and competent they are, the more untouchable they ought to be. That has to be non-negotiable. For, think about this, some of the people specially chosen for ranking positions have no other qualifications, besides hanging on to the right coattails at the right time.

As for that great majority that keeps their political choices to themselves, they should be off limits from any of the usual purges that follow elections. These protections must be built into our public service rules and our political culture. Because we have had what is now the resisted and discredited norm, purges do more than remove suspected fifth columnists. They are laced with racial poison which spread into greater watching society.

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