Burnham must be having a good laugh

Jan 18, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Peeping Tom…

Kaieteur News- Each week, the more Bharrat Jagdeo speaks, the more the lines between party and government begin to dissolve like sugar in lukewarm tea. The more he speaks, the more it leaves everyone scratching their heads, wondering if what they are watching is a government press conference, or a party meeting in disguise.

The Vice President is a man who strays boldly into territories where no partisan should tread. Matters of governmental administration, details that belong squarely in the realm of government accountability are openly paraded. He seems not to have a grasp of what should be the content of a party press conference as distinct from a governmental press conference.

Somewhere in this confusion, the ghost of Forbes Burnham must be chuckling. For this is how paramountcy begins. It begins not with a bang, but with the steady erosion of institutional boundaries.

The doctrine of party paramountcy under Burnham’s reign was a slow, insidious process by which the institutions of State became subservient to the ruling party. It was orchestrated with precision, culminating in the merger of the Ministry of National Development and Mobilization with the Office of the General Secretary of the PNC. Permanent Secretaries were required to attend high-level party forums, and the machinery of government was repurposed for partisan ends. The flag of the ruling party flew over the Appeal Court. It was a time when lines were not merely blurred but erased, and the consequences were catastrophic.

Fast forward to today, and one cannot help but draw eerie parallels. The Vice President’s press conferences conflate party and government. Details of government administration—what was procured, what was delivered, and what was not—are being addressed at a partisan forum. This is a breach of convention so brazen that one almost admires its audacity. But admiration quickly gives way to alarm when one considers the implications. This is how it starts: with small, seemingly innocuous overlaps that snowball into a full-blown usurpation of State functions by the ruling party.

One might be tempted to dismiss this as mere confusion—a case of the Vice President wearing too many hats and occasionally forgetting which one he has on. But to do so would be to underestimate the gravity of the situation. This is not just a matter of poor judgment; it is a creeping manifestation of party paramountcy. It is a deliberate disregard for the divide between party and government, a contemptuous blurring of lines that undermines the integrity of both institutions.

Consider also the Vice President’s recent pronouncements about James Bond. With the confidence of a man who’s just deciphered the Da Vinci Code, he asks why it would not be natural for Bond to want to come over to the PPP. Now, anyone with even a cursory understanding of the situation knows that Bond’s endorsement of Irfaan Ali’s second term is not synonymous with an embrace of the PPP/C. Yet, in the Vice President’s mind, these distinctions are trivial. It is this same lack of discernment that allows him to treat government matters as party business, and vice versa.

The conflation of party and government at these weekly press conferences has become so normalized that it is almost second nature. The PPP’s Thursday’s press conferences, have morphed into forums for governmental announcements and administrative clarifications. The media, ever eager for a soundbite, plays along, asking questions that ought to be reserved for government press briefings. It is a theater of the absurd, where everyone knows their lines but no one knows their roles.

The implications of this conflation can be far-reaching. When party and government become indistinguishable, the integrity of electoral processes is compromised. Governmental resources, meant to serve the public good, risk being repurposed for partisan gain. Outreaches and developmental projects take on a sinister hue, as their true motives become suspect. The line between public service and political expediency can become so blurred that one may wonder if it ever existed at all.

And yet, amidst this chaos, one cannot help but marvel at the sheer audacity of it all. It takes a special kind of confidence—or perhaps delusion—to operate with such blatant disregard for convention.

But let us also not lose sight of the larger picture. This is not just about one man’s confusion or the peculiarities of his press conferences. This is about the integrity of our democratic institutions and the principles that underpin them. The conflation of party and government is a slippery slope, one that leads inexorably to the erosion of accountability and, transparency, and, eventually, to abuse of power in the most frightening of ways. It is a path we have walked before. The scars of that journey are still fresh.

A party press conference is not a stage for governmental declarations. But it may be a platform to criticize political rivals. It is a space for discourse, debate, and the articulation of party positions. It is not for discussion and elaboration of details and reports on projects and governmental matters.  Respecting that distinction avoids the pitfalls of paramountcy.

But one must not blame the Vice President alone. The media plays along. They must be super-starved of information to allow themselves to be part of this charade.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

(Burnham must be having a good laugh)

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• Bharrat Jagdeo, Paramountcy, Permanent Secretaries, Press Conference

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