MY COLUMN last week sought to alert readers to what I discern as a growing disconnect between the Government and its supporters.Some people ask how do I know that; did I do a poll? Whenever I am in Guyana, I move around the African Guyanese communities, talking and listening to people. I do activist work on behalf of a couple of organizations I belong to, and also in my personal capacity. I am often invited by residents of communities to speak to them and to listen to their concerns. Individuals from all over the coast come to Georgetown to see me mostly to complain about discrimination in their villages and at the workplace.

I meet with them mostly at Rodney House, but I also meet with groups of people wherever it’s convenient. I go to communities and help to organize people into organizations. Recently, I began meeting with a group of youths on the road at Buxton Backdam-side. That group is now a thriving youth organization that meets in a church pastored by Pastor Cleaveland Harry.

In addition to talking with people in their communities, I am inundated with scores of emails and Facebook messages from people, asking my view or expressing their view on politics in Guyana. Sometimes I am not able to answer all of the mails. So, I think I have a fairly good sense of the pulse of the African Guyanese community.

Not unexpectedly, some people disagreed with my assessment in last week’s column. I have no problem with disagreements, it is an important aspect of public discourse; but some interpreted my warning as a sinister plot on my part to bring down the Government. I was not surprised by that charge; our deeply tribal politics have bred a sub-culture of political defensiveness that frames all criticism of party and Government as political destabilization. There is little attempt to distinguish between criticism as partisan-tribal “cussing out” and a more objective form of criticism aimed at ensuring accountable and democratic governance.

I am therefore quite aware that I am part of a very small group of public commentators who attempt to do a very delicate balancing act between expressing support for a government while critiquing its actions. I understand the frustration with my type, especially when it comes from overzealous Government supporters. It is the same frustration that many in the USA have with young people, including young African Americans, who dread a Trump presidency but are uncomfortable with Clinton’s half-baked stances on core progressive issues. In the end, I hope they vote for Clinton, but I believe the questioning of her candidacy would ultimately help to shape a candidate who is more sensitive to the motions of her base.

The results of our last election were very close; it was victory for the Coalition by less than 5,000 votes. The local government elections which followed soon after revealed that, despite its loss at the general election, the PPP’s base remains intact. The PPP got more of its supporters to go out and vote in its favour, while the Coalition struggled to get enough of its supporters to do the same.

The above tells us two things. In order to win the next election, the Coalition has to be able to hold on to the votes it got at the last election. It also tells us that, in a very short time, the enthusiasm of Government supporters had waned.

The overwhelming majority of the Coalition’s votes came from the African Guyanese community. The other votes came from the Amerindian and Indian Guyanese communities. Some commentators have pointed out that, in the mix of things, the votes of the two latter communities are indispensable; that there would have been no victory without them. On the face of it, that is true, but such an analysis runs the risk of downplaying the African Guyanese vote.

Yes, in the context of our ethically driven politics, because it is the natural constituency of the Coalition, its votes are a given; but that does not mean that the Coalition does not have to fight to hold on to those votes beyond appeal to political and ethnic loyalty. People vote for parties because they expect those parties to represent their interests and advance polices that are favourable to them when those parties get into power. The question, then, is this: Are the three ethnic groups satisfied that the Government has adequately represented their interests and advanced policies beneficial to them?

Some in the Government have touted the notion of race-neutral policies that benefit all Guyanese, regardless of ethnicity. While that sounds seductive, it actually does not, in reality, play out that way. Are the benefits of the policy perceived to be equitably distributed? Do all of the groups have the capacity to take advantage of the policy? In any case, given the ethnic compartmentalization of our economy, it is extremely difficult to craft any single race-neutral economic policy.

I say the above to make the point that government in Guyana has to always be sensitive to the ethnic impact of its policies. My estimation is that Government has not been as sensitive as it should when it comes to the African Guyanese community. Despite the PPP’s dread narrative about the Government’s attitude to the Indian Guyanese community, the Government has been more sensitive to the concerns of that community than the PPP government was to the concerns of the African Guyanese community.

The continued subsidizing of the sugar industry in the form of massive bailouts has directly benefited the mainly Indian Guyanese community. The PPP never did the same for sectors heavily populated by African Guyanese. In fact, it sought to remove the electricity subsidy from Linden.

One sees the Ministry of Public Infrastructure move to directly address Indian Guyanese concerns about crime. One sees the Government risking its reputation by steering government contracts to Indian Guyanese businesspeople, including some who were enablers of the PPP’s destruction of Guyana and its transfer of state resources into private hands.

The Government has also put a lot of energy and resources into the Amerindian communities. Again, this contradicts the PPP’s charges of discrimination against Amerindians. Amerindians are adequately represented in the extended Cabinet. The President and his Ministers have spent a lot of time in that community. One gets the sense that there is a Government Amerindian strategy.

Am I saying that Amerindians and Indian Guyanese do not have complaints against the Government, or that they get more resources from Government? Absolutely not. But at least one sees the Government making an effort to be sensitive to the concerns of those communities. The same cannot be said for its attitude to the African Guyanese community.

I think the Government has demonstrated less open sensitivity to the African Guyanese concerns at the level of policy. The Government has more often than not found itself on a collision course with sections of the African Guyanese community. A few instances spring to mind. The Georgetown City Council’s relocation policy has hurt the mostly African Guyanese vendors psychologically and economically. The vendors are being chased around. They tell heart-wrenching stories of their goods being seized. They are herded into a yard where consumers don’t go. Their earning capacity has decreased.

The mainly African Guyanese public servants, including teachers, are at loggerheads over wages. The Government has taken a hard line against the workers; they have thrown the IMF playbook at them. They are being told to be grateful and thankful for small “mercies.” The President, to his eternal credit, appears to have pulled back a bit, but enough damage has been done. The Government has promised to do something about the problem of bias in the awarding of contracts, yet the mainly African Guyanese small contractors are still left out in the cold.

There is apartheid going on in the administration of cricket in Guyana, but the Government has not lifted a finger to correct the problem. Many young cricketers from regions not controlled by the rogue Guyana Cricket Board are being denied facilities and opportunities. There have been no elections for the GCB for almost a decade. This miscarriage of democracy and justice disproportionately affects African Guyanese cricketers, who expect their government to bat for them.

The issue of prosecuting the wrongs of the past regime is a very sensitive one in the African Guyanese community. They see it as a form of justice for them, since they were more often than not the victims of the PPP’s rampage. The Government’s apparent weak attitude to the audit results dents African Guyanese optimism that Government can be an agent of justice.

The seeming disinterest in getting to the bottom of the Crum-Ewing assassination and the other victims of state-sponsored political violence is not lost on the community. The embarrassment of not being able to access government or communicate with the Ministers, who are viewed as a new, conceited elite, is alive in the community.

This is not to say that Government has not done anything in the African Guyanese community. Only recently, the President committed the Government to treat with the UN charter on the International Decade of Peoples of African Descent. There are Government-sponsored training programmes emanating from some ministries. Some people have gained employment and some communities now enjoy social services they did not have before May 2015.

But, in the end, it is the big policies that really matter. And it is the cumulative effect of the above examples that hurts the Government’s standing in its constituency.
Popular and respected journalist Gordon Mosley, in a response to last week’s column, asked if I did a poll. I am not a pollster, and polling is not the only way to capture political behaviour. But I challenge Gordon and other journalists to go into the fields and speak to vendors, teachers, public servants, the African Guyanese youth, the unemployed, and even some party faithful, and report your findings to the nation.

More of Dr. Hinds ‘writings and commentaries can be found on his YouTube Channel Hinds’ Sight: Dr. David Hinds’ Guyana-Caribbean Politics and on his website www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com. Send comments to dhinds6106@aol.com