IN his recent address to Parliament, President Granger again made a plea and a case for genuine national unity at the level of governance. We have editorialised in the past that this President appears to be extremely serious about actualising a real Government of National Unity (GNU). Although the Opposition has not been forthcoming, the President remains undaunted. Cleary, for him, this is not a case of political rhetoric; it is a matter of necessity.

Making reference to the election that brought his coalition government to office, the President observed: “We, Guyanese, chose to change the country’s political culture from the divisive, degenerate and dangerous “winner-takes-all” model to one of inclusionary, participatory, multi-party democracy.” This is a most forthright statement on national and political joint-ness.

Of particular importance is the description of the “winner-takes-all” system as dangerous. We fully agree with the President on this score.

The majoritarian system, inherited from our colonial masters, was an imposition that did not yield, and has not yielded, the social and political cohesion that are so necessary for stability and development in our ethnically diverse society. It has instead exacerbated the insecurities and fears which resulted from the manner in which our ethnic groups were thrown together in our common space and the divide-and-rule colonial model. The majoritarian model rewards the electoral winner with total and unchecked power, and has kept our independence politics in a state of authoritarianism, which, when linked to ethnic competition, has resulted in the dangerous condition the President refers to.
Our independence from colonialism should mean a rejection of that dangerous model. Hence the need for an alternative model, which, according to the President, must facilitate “inclusionary, participatory, multi-party democracy.”

There is no doubt that, in our first 50 years of independence, we have reneged on the promise of a genuine multi-party democracy suited to our ethnic diversity. We held on, for selfish partisan reasons, to a multi-party formula that was constructed for ethnically homogenous societies.
We join the President in calling for a transition away from that model. Those individuals who, and organisations which, innocently and not so innocently advocate retaining of the discredited model should rethink their advocacy. The experience of one-party domination in the name of multi-party democracy has not been a happy one.

Some cite fear of an Opposition-less system as justification for holding on to the winner-takes-all system. We think such fears are not enough to justify surrender to the politics of one-party domination. Ironically, the very majoritarian system they want to hold on to structurally and constitutionally marginalizes the Opposition, despite some references to inclusion. For us to build the equal society that we desire, winner-takes-all majoritarianism must be abolished once and for all.

The President, in his address, does something else that is noteworthy — he makes the linkage between freedom from political animosity and economic development by advancing the case for national unity at both the political and economic levels. According to him, “Our Golden Jubilee is a propitious moment for all Guyanese to put an end to hateful and unhelpful political discord, disaffection and disunity. Our Golden Jubilee is a golden opportunity for us to cement national unity at the political level and at the economic level,”

This is most insightful. National unity at the political level, divorced from national unity at the economic level is, in the end, counter-productive. It is a thesis that characterized Professor Clive Thomas’s arguments for national development in his book “Bread and Justice” written in the mid-1970s.

Our economy has developed in the same polarized manner as our politics. From sugar, to rice, to bauxite, to the public service, to the commercial sector, our economic base has been ethnically grounded. It will take decades to change that configuration, if it can be changed at all. But what can be done is exactly what the President is advocating — the harmonising of the different strands of that diverse base into a national political economy. Now that the President has made the clarion call, it is left to the rest of the society, beginning with our major institutions, to activate the mechanisms through which this vision would become a reality. No doubt, constitutional reform is primary. But there is also the need for popular education. This is where we think the work of the newly created Ministry of Social Cohesion comes in.

Some weeks ago, one of our columnists, Dr. David Hinds, called on that ministry to make public education one of the principal planks of its work. In light of the President’s charge, we endorse that call. Within the next decade, every Guyanese should become literate about national cohesion and unity, not as rhetoric, but as a guiding national value and principle.