Can politics ever be fair and honest?

Dec 14, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – Guyanese have long become disenchanted with politics. Given the incessant intrigue and divisiveness of local politics, it may have been assumed that students would be very much interested in studying this subject; but this is far from so.
Students want little to do with politics. One of the reasons why the Political Science programme at the University of Guyana had to be discontinued was because of low enrollment. Students wanted nothing to do with politics.
During the era of dictatorship, they saw it as dirty, deceitful and dominated by rogues, crooks, charlatans and self-servers. They associated politics with violence and violations. They saw involvement as inviting police and political harassment, the denial of the right to work and ultimately the threat of death.
With the restoration of democracy in 1992, the image of politicians as being corrupt took center-stage. This turned away persons from the political process.
Another disincentive to political participation has been the lack of internal party democracy. The PNC/R and the PPP/C are both undemocratic institutions. The PNC/R has foisted a Leader of the Opposition on its own members without any semblance of democratic consultation of approbation. The PPP/C during its last Congress put it leaders to ‘guide’ discussions in the groups, effectively neutralizing free expression.
When the young people who were disenchanted with the political process decided to enter the political fray, they were rejected by the electorate. Mark Benschop, a very popular rabble-rouser among rank-and-file Guyanese, ran for election in local government elections. His party was decimated at the polls. The newer parties did not have a good showing at the 2020 General and Regional Elections. One of them, The Citizens’ Initiative, has imploded.
These developments will lead to further political disillusionment. And unfortunately, it will push young aspirants into the suffocating arms of the two main political parties and into the very ethnic conflict which they were seeking to avoid.
The PPP/C has appointed a number of young persons to Cabinet. But this will not change the country’s or the PPP’s political culture. Those young Ministers will soon realize that decision-making in the government and the party is controlled by a small coterie. If they have not already discovered it, they will soon find that unless they toe the line of the political elite, they will become emasculated. Already there are signs of this happening. In the days and week ahead, they too will discover that the real power lies with a handful of individuals and that they are destined to become cogs in the wheel which is being turned by this elite.
It is no different in the PNC/R. An old guard controls the levers of power.
What then are the prospects for the emergence of a fairer and more honest politics?
One of the mistakes that people make is to assume that a new political culture can be achieved through the existing political structures. However, it has proven impossible to reform the existing political structures.
Change from within is impossible. The existing political elite has a firm stranglehold on their parties.
A fairer and more honest politics has to emerge outside of the existing political structures. One avenue may be through a stronger civil society.
Guyana does not have a powerful civil society. The closest it came to this society was during the protests over the parking meters. But this fizzled.
A strong civil society is the one hope for reformation of the country’s political culture. But this civil society has to be based on principles, honesty and fair play being the foremost.
Fair play in sport and can become fairness in business and in the allocation of government services. Honesty in our dealings with one another can translate into refusing to accept dishonest political decisions. This requires people to dump their double standards.
You cannot condemn those who steal your property without equally condemning those who give away the country’s wealth. You cannot expect persons to be honest with you, when you support the dishonest act of election rigging.
You cannot despise persons with whom you do not see eye-eye, yet welcome those political charlatans who advocated the throwing away of the ballot boxes and the annulment of the will of the people.
The establishment of a fairer and honest political culture starts with the individual and the things he or she decides to support or reject. Once there are double standards, the political elite will continue to rule the roost over the nation’s affairs.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

 

 

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