FREEDOM of choice makes democracy real. Guyanese citizens exercise absolute freedom in Guyana today to choose who governs us.On the 2015 national and regional elections campaign trail, political leaders engage citizens, working hard to win the hearts and minds of voters, with opposing sides doing their utmost to guarantee votes, wanting the voter to choose either the ruling party, or the Opposition grouping, each side depending on its track record.

And the choice comes down to two political camps: the veteran political juggernaut in the ruling People’s Progressive Party with its strong Civic embrace; and that fledgling Opposition group A Partnership For National Unity (APNU), with its last-minute arrangement with the formerly ambitious upstart political cub, Alliance For Change (AFC).
One scratches one’s head in vain trying to come up with reasons voters would choose the stern-faced APNU-AFC to govern this nation. For the past three years, the two held hands in Parliament to cripple the socio-economic advance of the Guyanese people, cutting such crucial national budgets as the Amerindian Development Fund and University of Guyana student tuition.
In addition, the APNU-AFC conjoining suffered our nation a grotesque dictatorial outcome, with their cutting down of the free and fair Government of President Donald Ramotar from its five-year constitutional term of office, to just three years.
These two indicators from the Opposition camp cause immense unease in the global Guyanese population: whereby hysterical Opposition folks angrily stifle the socio-economic progress of Guyana, this time with three years of slashed national budgets, but reflected also as in what happened to us between 1964 – 1992, when we suffered the Caribbean’s most devastating socio-economic collapse; and then the curtailing of democratically elected PPP Governments, as happened before we gained Independence when the PPP got tossed out of Government, and again in 1998 when late former President Janet Jagan suffered an ignoble end to her Government, and again now in 2015 with President Ramotar’s administration. Maybe this curse on our nation has become a politico-cultural way of being, but whatever it is, the Opposition seems not to have changed its ways, despite changing its name and its face.
The Opposition must face its undemocratic ways. Within the past decade it prematurely ended, completely terminated, two freely and fairly elected PPP Governments. Before we gained Independence such a trend reared its ugly head when the PPP suffered an abrupt tossing out of its Government from office.
The Opposition must also face its constant attack on the socio-economic progress of Guyana. We cannot condone it perpetuating those 28 years of social and economic devastation it foisted upon us, with its most recent three-year body slam in strangling critical budget flows to the people of our country.
In these two frightening scenarios, in exhibiting its dictatorial mindset with gross constant disrespect for freely and fairly elected Governments of this land, and in its constant charge to dismantle our progressive and development initiatives, the Opposition beat up on itself, its own anger turning in upon itself in an ugly display of irrational, unethical, emotional, vengeance-filled tirade.
In fact, the majority Opposition turned the 10th Parliament into a quarrelsome rumshop, ineffective, noisy and a complete waste of time at every Sitting, never once designing a solution to a social, economic or political problems Guyanese encounter.
Indeed, quite a few of its own Members of Parliament got fed-up with the crass ugliness displayed in the 10th Parliament, and by the time the two myopic parties decided to gang up, they had cemented a common modus operandi, joined in their hatred of certain PPP leaders, and their paranoia concerning the freely and fairly elected Guyanese Government.
One searches in vain for positives for the Opposition. A political camp filled with aggressive lawyers, the Opposition resorts to court cases, and Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs for the Government, Anil Nandlall, has been busy dealing with these court matters.
We saw all sorts of Opposition challenges, from constitutional matters to financial issues to libel cases.
What a society we descended to!
In all of it, President Ramotar suffered immense harassment and even maligning of his character. Private media outfits disrespected the President at every turn, and body-slammed him with articles, columns and editorial comments passing off as news that reduced the Guyanese social space to a reflection of the rumshop 10th Parliament.

President Ramotar had to battle with this wayward 10th Parliament; a Public Service lacking crucial skills and expertise; contractors for public works who skylarked on the job; an irresponsible private media landscape where Journalism lacks ethical and professional regulation, allowing any and everybody to inundate the public with irrational and nonsensical, wild views, opinions and comments; and a society fedup with the political crap feeding through their televisions, social media smartscreens, and newspapers.
In this scenario, the President demonstrated an astonishing thing: he redefined the Presidency into an office of humble service to the Guyanese people. He kept his inner strength and resolve of character quiet, and proceeded to transform how we’re being as a people, how we behave in the face of immense nasty public leadership from our high institutions like Parliament.
Today, President Ramotar showcases a Guyanese Government that shows its humanity, classy in public behaviour, engaging with citizens in an authentic reaching out, and putting first and foremost the participation of citizens as the ultimate and most important concern.
As the President moves forward, he would face the immense challenge of training frontline Government and State workers and community leaders in the art of human relations, to ensure Government interacts with Guyanese citizens in that humane, humble, heart-felt style he himself cultivates as a leader. He would need the full cooperation of the Ministry of Education, and indeed all of Government, in this mammoth task, in this retooling of Government’s face as a humane, caring, compassionate organ of the people.
Were this simple paradigm shift to happen, the Opposition would not find a leg to stand on, and in that realisation one sees clarity in the choice for our future: the Opposition merely takes advantage of Government’s struggle to employ a cadre of frontline community leaders who mirror President Ramotar’s leadership style of humble, open, people-oriented service. This is the only thing keeping Opposition elements a serious force.
But the writing is on the wall: Guyana is a fast-emerging 21st century society, sophisticated in its thinking and political tastes, and our people now recognise the character and leadership soft-skills of our President, and once this gets inculcated across the State, impacting communities, the Opposition would have to re-invent itself.
In the meantime, we Guyanese choose our Government from the track record of the past three years, a record standing on the symbol of the Marriott and how each side approached that signal achievement. In President Ramotar, we see the miracle of accomplishment in the face of an Opposition that terribly miscalculates its strategy and reason d’etre, and the heartbeat of the Guyanese people.

by Shaun Michael Samaroo