REACHING out to embrace Civic society, the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) embodies a long history of inclusiveness and participatory politics.Today, President Donald Ramotar works with that open, accommodating attitude, welcoming anybody on board with Government who would contribute to the development of our nation.

In fact, when President Ramotar won the Party’s Presidential candidacy for the 2011 national elections, he right away set about meeting with community groups and apolitical leaders. He held conversations with dozens of Guyanese organisations, signalling his open, authentic style of leadership.
On a TV programme in Berbice last Tuesday evening, the President reiterated this absolute necessity, making the point that Government is open to every Guyanese approaching Government, coming up with ideas and initiatives and proposals for community transformation and national development, for the development process to include the entire human capital of the Guyanese human resource base.
President Ramotar carved out a unique niche for himself, rising above the fray and the factions and the little petty concerns that so dog our society. He never stoops to the level of taking sides, of battling uselessness.
Yet, he’s had to struggle with an Opposition camp that refuses to reach beyond the political arena to create solutions and generate creative ideas. The Opposition does not seek out partnerships and alliances with community groups and non-political organisations.
Touting itself as a coalition, the Opposition grouping, A Partnership for National Unity – Alliance For Change (APNU-AFC), ignores the promise in its name, with zero partnership or alliance with civic Guyanese society.
The APNU-AFC partnership-alliance limits the meaning of the concept of partnering and forming alliances to the small political pool opposing the freely and fairly elected Guyanese Government.
But the AFC side of the camp opens its arms to any and everybody who expresses anger and hatred for the PPP/C. Seeming to lack standardisation for its membership pool, the Party blissfully allows folks spewing irrational, emotive and baseless nasty rhetoric to speak on its behalf, thus damaging its image and its role in the society.
APNU seems somewhat professional in how it approaches building its public image, although the perception that it harbors unruly elements and violence-prone thugs in its lower ranks persists.
We raise this issue for a simple reason: after the May 11 elections, we must work hard to bring the Opposition out of the cold.
The leaders of the Opposition would want to save face after really messing up the 10th Parliament, turning their one-seat Majority into a complete waste of time, into a quarrelsome den of noisy political animals bent on gaining power at all cost to the nation’s development.
The Opposition today stands angry and seething that Guyana achieved the symbolic development goal of attracting a world class Marriott in Georgetown. In what appears to be jealousy or envy that the PPP/C achieved this great thing, the Opposition camp insists on crapping on the Marriott project, backed with some senseless mass media hysteria and wild editorialising.
President Ramotar faces the immense challenge of overcoming this broken state of the Guyanese Opposition. We look for the Opposition to self-heal and to repair its broken structures and to repaint its face from that stern-faced, angry scowl into a development-friendly attitude.
But clearly that’s failing, as the vocal voices in the Opposition refuse to exercise such sensibleness as cultivating a noble, cool, engaging and participatory modus operandi, to put Guyana’s development first and foremost, and seek above all else a working, authentic, real relationship with our freely and fairly elected Government.
In the face of this Opposition failure, it becomes imperative for Government to design a way to bring the Opposition out of the cold, to create a space for Opposition leaders to save face and enter that zone of engaging, participating relationship with civic society.
As we move this nation forward, we’ve got to employ the strength, courage, wisdom and resolve to repair two broken arenas that bedevil our social space.
We absolutely must design the national media landscape so that Guyanese citizens live in a social space filled with great ideas and sound debates, inspiring stories and life lessons, and motivating initiatives and penetrating new thoughts. The media today fail to lift us to a new consciousness, to awaken the beauty of our national imagination, to inculcate in modern, 21st century Guyana a national love for knowledge and intelligent conversation.
Especially among our young people, we see the mass media’s failing, with popular media only engaging young Guyanese with content of crass entertainment and a brainless, noisy pop-culture.
The mass media push out content to adults, and much of it caters to the political fray and factions bedeviling our society.
Were we to clean up the national framework of freedom and democratic entitlement under which the mass media operate, we would see a stunning transformation in how Guyanese talk, think and engage each other.
Crucially, however, such a paradigm shift would give the Opposition the impetus it needs to become a constructive, development-oriented, sensible national institution.
The Opposition’s function in our democracy plays a vital role in making our body politic a healthy, vibrant, serious foundation for the efficient managing of the society. But the Guyanese nation suffers from an Opposition mindset lacking proper perspective of its role and function.
In fact, the Opposition seems to function as a shaky platform for discontented, disgruntled and demoralising souls to harass the Guyanese public space with harsh, careless rhetoric.
Opposition spokespeople fill the national mind with bad words, poor thoughts and demotivating noise.
We must take responsibility for this state of affairs, as it’s a matter of national concern, and relates directly to the public good, that political concept that underlines every public policy, including national security and foreign affairs.
For the sake of the public good, we owe the Guyanese nation this crucial necessity, of leading the Opposition to find its place in our society, of causing these leaders to make a constructive contribution to the well-being of Guyanese, instead of the current strife, quarrels and dissent we see emanating from Opposition camps.