How could we ensure political parties keep their promises after elections?Now we’ll hear all manner of promises, with political parties regaling us with their plans, programmes and projects in their quest for our votes.This we must grasp and understand; that we the people hold this country in our hands today. Guyana is no longer the forte of politicians and misguided political opportunists. Guyanese today control Guyana, and we come together, empowered, joining hands and hearts, to vote for the Government and Parliament that we feel would make the difference for our nation as we propel ourselves to be a resounding 21st century society.
Today, our democracy hums and thrives with a pulsing aliveness. After two decades of free and fair elections, where our Government guards with care that sacred right of free and fair national and regional elections, we stand a democratic, noble people in the eyes of the world: we are a democracy, the people of our nation in charge of Guyana.
We must know the positives of who we are today:
* We hold dear our fundamental right to free and fair elections, and it is grotesque that we still harbor among us some who seek power without respecting democracy, without denouncing the decades of rigged elections that crippled our socio-economic wellbeing, whereby we had to repair our nation over the past 23 years;
* We see the vibrant aliveness of our democracy at play on the campaign trail, with political parties fully confident that the vote of the people decides our Government for the next five years. No one could possibly deny the democratic culture of Guyana today. We see it today in a healthy contest for Government;
* The ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) maintains its strong participatory philosophy that won it elections in 1992, with its embrace of Civic society. The PPP is the only political force in this country that reaches out to the Guyanese Civic society to engage civic experts and technocrats in the work of Government;
* In the Opposition, we see lots of talk of partnerships and alliances, but no concrete reaching across to Civic society. Nowhere in the proposed Government, in those luxury chairs of high offices, with three vice-presidents and a president and a prime minister, nowhere on such a bloated Government, do we see a Civic member of society. That’s disappointing, given the lofty promises inherent in the name of the party – A Partnership for National Unity – Alliance For Change.
* It is the Opposition that triggered two dictatorial terminations of two legal, freely and fairly elected Governments in this country, one in 1998 when Janet Jagan was President, and the other now, in 2015, with the cutting short of this Government from its constitutional five-year term to a three-year term. Our national media, civic organizations and human rights advocates need to speak out against this dictatorial tendency of certain Opposition leaders, who would, without regard for free and fair elections, terminate governments of the Guyanese people at their whim and fancy, inconsiderate of free and fair elections. People with such dictatorial mindsets and worldviews, blind to their own flaws, cannot lead us into being a secured, democratic 21st century nation.
When we look to the political parties as they promise us a magnificent utopia filled with our dreams and our aspirations and our desires, we want to inspect how their words line up with their actions.
President Donald Ramotar’s Government knows its strengths and its weaknesses, and the President reaches across the society, and even internationally, to plug the leaks, seeking solutions to such debilitating handicaps as our severe skills crisis and brain drain.
These issues the Government grapples with today because by 1992 we had become a gutted, devastated society, and we cannot today ignore the fact that our body politic got crippled and that extensive systematic surgery had to be employed to bring us to where we are today, to repair our socio-economic devastation. We’re far from perfect, and we cannot ignore the reason why, that we are on the tail end of a massive recovery road.
Government works to correct deficiencies and malfunctions, but it takes time.
When the Opposition won the majority seats in Parliament in 2011, they promised a new culture of collaboration and cooperation. Instead, they reduced our nation to a daily rant of demoralized rows, filling the national media with ugly words, refusing to inspire us, to lift our spirits, to cooperate with President Ramotar to build our country.
Seeing President Ramotar’s weakened position as a Minority Government, and assuming his character was weak and frightened, the Opposition-controlled Parliament bullied and harassed the Government at every turn. That’s simply not right, and our hearts go out to the President, a man of such humility and quiet love for his nation.
So who’s gonna keep their promises to us?
In two crucial areas the Opposition lacks credibility: in failing to honour its much-touted rhetoric of “partnership” and “alliance”, whereby it failed to include any Civic-minded Guyanese in its proposed top Government posts, thus becoming a political animal without a Civic component to keep it in check; and in its move twice in the past ten years to terminate freely and fairly elected Governments in this country, showing disdain and disregard for voters.
So, who’s going to keep their promises?
The ruling party embraces Civic society, and remains answerable to civic leaders who engage it with respect and professionalism, including the Private Sector Commission and the Trade Union movement. The ruling party also guards with its heart and soul and very life this idea that free and fair national and regional elections are sacred, entrenched, noble rights of the Guyanese citizen. In that conviction and belief, we see authenticity, a quality we could trust.
by Shaun Michael Samaroo