The Square Peg Legacy

Jun 14, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Peeping Tom…

Kaieteur News – History in Guyana never dies. It simply waits to be reenacted. What began as a bold experiment in self-determination ended in predictable mediocrity. And the tragedy is not so much that it happened, but that it happened again.

Burnham’s dream of ‘Guyanization’—a euphemism for replacing the colonial administrative class with locals loyal to the new order—was, at its core, a nationalist ideal. But ideals without discipline often lead to farce. The result was a bureaucracy filled with incompetents, party hacks, and ideologues. The state became bloated, inert, and suffocating.

Burnham, it is said, later confided in private that many of those to whom he had entrusted power had failed him. They were square pegs in round holes, men and women without administrative temperament or managerial ability. Some were gifted only in sycophancy. And yet he could not remove them. He had created a patronage machine and he was now trapped within it. The sugar boom gave the illusion of prosperity for a while, but the gloss wore off. When the lean years came, Burnham had ideas—but no competent lieutenants to implement them. The machinery of the state creaked, groaned, and ultimately broke down.

The irony is that the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), the direct descendant of Burnham’s party, the PNC, learned nothing. Rebranded and realigned, first into the PNCR, and then into the APNU+AFC coalition, it returned to office in 2015 after 23 years in the political wilderness. It was given a second chance—rare in the politics of the Caribbean. But instead of introspection and course correction, it repeated history almost step by step. Once again, square pegs were hammered into round holes. Once again, loyalty trumped ability.

The ministries became parking lots for political aspirants and loyalists. Critical state agencies were handed over to people who had neither the training nor the talent to lead. Some ministers mistook holding a portfolio for competence. There was noise, announcements, ceremonial ribbon-cuttings—but little substance. There were no large-scale economic transformations, no major development projects completed, no significant legacy to boast of. Just like in the 1970s and 80s, there was the rhetoric of national uplift but the reality of bureaucratic sclerosis.

By the time the APNU+AFC coalition faced the 2020 general and regional elections, it had little of significance to show. The hopes of 2015 had curdled into the disenchantment of 2020. Roads were unfinished, jobs were scarce, agriculture remained in decline, and the private sector was increasingly wary of a government that talked reform but delivered stasis.

But the worst was still to come. When the electorate rejected the APNU+AFC at the polls, the party did not bow out gracefully. Instead, it sought to squat in power. For five months, Guyana became a theatre of the absurd. Electoral officials became protagonists in a failed political pantomime, aided by enablers who sought to manipulate spreadsheets and fabricate results. It was a scheme so clumsy, so badly executed, that it embarrassed even seasoned strongmen elsewhere.

In the end, the APNU+AFC was booted out—not just by the votes, but by the evidence of its own incompetence. The very hands that were supposed to rig the system couldn’t even get that right. History, which had already judged the Burnham years, now turned its gaze on his successors with equal severity.

What does this say of the PNCR? That it is an unreformable party? Perhaps not. But it is certainly one that has never come to terms with its past. It has failed to understand that governance requires skill, not slogans. That leadership demands ability, not allegiance. That development is not the outcome of announcements, but of careful planning, execution, and accountability.

Burnham believed in the talent of Guyanese. But belief is not a substitute for judgment. His tragedy was that he did not distinguish between faithfulness and competence. The APNU+AFC fell into the same trap. In both cases, the state was transformed into a sanctuary for the unfit and the unprepared. In both cases, the people paid the price.

The lesson, then, is not simply that political power must be localized. It must also be professionalized. Guyanization cannot mean Guyanese mediocrity in high office. That is not national pride—it is national sabotage. The PNCR would do well to revisit its own history, not with the reverence of nostalgia, but with the clarity of hindsight. For unless it learns from its mistakes, it is doomed to repeat them. And the people of Guyana deserve better than another chapter in a long and repetitive tragedy.

(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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• APNU, Burnham, Guyanese History, Peeping Tom, Square Peg

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