THE ship of state, in the entire history of Guyana, has never been at such a critical juncture as the current times. It was the will of the people in 2015 and perhaps the hidden hand of fate that the heavy task of the nation’s leadership, the prestige and privilege; the burden of command should fall on the soldiering shoulders of David Arthur Granger. He emerged, almost out of political obscurity, at a time when the party needed a game changer. His first order of business was to heal the rifts within; produced by his ascendancy.

His national agenda focused on a unifying platform. Listening to the lessons of the 2011 Elections loss meant an embarkation into unchartered waters. The historian knew acutely the vicissitudes of politics and the fragility of coalitions in his party’s experiment in 1964, and between Forbes Burnham and Cheddie Jagan, according to Halim Majeed in ‘Forbes Burnham: National Reconciliation and National Unity, 1984-1985’.

He gambled on the WPA which viewed the PNC as being complicit in the death of its leader. And then there was the AFC, a young party attracting tremendous grassroots support, which had vowed never to work with them. If the APNU+AFC Coalition’s only task is holding position until 2020, that singular act becomes unprecedented; its architect written into our history.

As the ship of state sailed in times past, the Sugar Industry was the rudder. The herculean task of navigating the nuances of the team of rivals was added the heavy task of restructuring Guyana Sugar Cooperation (GuySuCo).

His was the balancing act, in his own words, to act “resolutely and responsibly to protect the livelihood of workers, to preserve the viability of rural communities and prevent the further financial depletion of the country’s treasury,” while, “committed to making the industry efficient and competitive by consolidating cultivation”.

Few of us can grasp the sheer demands of high office such as the President holds. Joseph Conrad gives us but a glimpse, writing on ‘Command at Sea’; says, “A ship at sea is a different world in herself, and in consideration of the protracted and distant operations of the fleet units, the Navy must place great power, responsibility and trust in the hands of those leaders chosen for command. In each ship there is one man who, in the hour of emergency or peril at sea, can turn to no other man. There is one who alone is ultimately responsible for the safe navigation, engineering performance, accurate gunfire and morale of the ship. He is the Commanding Officer. He is the ship!”

The President is the ship. Simultaneously, he has had to fend off the most daring challenges to our territorial integrity, consistently by Venezuela, and by Suriname. The President, to his credit, has used every forum to put to the international community Guyana’s case, defending Guyana’s territorial sovereignty at the highest forums while at the same time carving out a new foreign policy for Guyana in the age of Trump. Venezuela poses not only a treat to our borders, but an existential treat to our economic future with part of its claim resting in our Exclusive Economic Zone, emboldened even more with the discovery of oil.

During the Canadian oil and gas trade mission to Guyana last year, one of the executives from the Newfoundland and Labrador Oil and Gas Industry Association (NOIA) remarked on what the stakes are for Guyana. He said it took Canada about 25 years between its discovery of oil and production; Guyana is hoping to do the same in under five years.

Foreign Affairs magazine in February 2017 credited the Granger administration with “setting up new laws to shape the budding oil sector into a top oil producer; these include a local content law that forces oil companies to hire locals, a new oil regulatory agency, taxation legislation, and the creation of an infrastructure and savings fund, too.”
Managed well, in the right hands, this sector has untold benefits for Guyanese living and those yet to be born. Consequently, oil revenues in five years will make Guyana one of, if not, the leading economy in the region. Guyana has to be ready to lead.

The President is a person of faith. He attends church; serves his God. There is an iconic photograph of him kneeling between pews praying. He leads a chorus of Ministers at Cabinet who are not always singing from the same hymn book. For the weighty decisions he has to make on other matters as well–health, education, infrastructure, in the public and private sectors, issues foreign and domestic–he can seek counsel, yet every decision of his Government must be made in his own deliberate judgment. President Granger has to have the magic of Houdini, dance like Fred Astaire, but do it like Ginger Rogers, backwards in high heels.

James Brady writing in ‘Why Marines Fight’ puts it best when he said, “A rife platoon’s members must care for one another. Its leaders must cherish the men in every fire team and squad. For a rifleman, a leader’s misjudgment, ignorance or inexperience can be fatal; no second chances; no re-running the exercise until you get it right. When the word ‘go’ is given, there is no turning back from the consequences. It is the monstrous burden of command.” So too for our President. The stakes are high. The burden is great. There can be no turning back.