OVER the past week, sections of this society have been become increasingly roiled in the wake of President David Granger’s unilateral selection of retired judge Justice James Patterson for the post of Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) chairman, after reaching gridlock with the opposition leader in selecting what the head of state referred to as a constitutionally ‘fit and proper’ person.

President Granger has stated his criteria for consideration of a not unacceptable Chairman, his reason for selecting Justice Patterson, and his reasons for not elaborating on reasons for rejecting the individual names on the lists offered by Mr. Jagdeo.  In neither the criteria nor reasons is race a factor in selection.
It was therefore surprising when several organisations representing Afro-Guyanese interests sent out releases hailing the President’s decision as a victory for Africans in Guyana, citing the fact the three past chairs of GECOM, all selected under the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) in government, were of Indian descent.  Reference was also made to the PPP’s practice of racial discrimination.

It is not that African organisations do not have an exceedingly strong case to make with regard to the former administration’s machinations when it came to race.  As recently as 2014, this very paper – the state publication – repeated the indecency of publishing a racist editorial, an only tangential escalation of the racism that cluttered the letter pages and columns.  Then President Donald Ramotar, who had ministerial portfolio for the state media did not deign to offer a condemnation despite calls to do so and protests in front of the paper.  The revelations on the composition of state boards and ambassadorial appointments coming out of the libel case brought against columnist Freddie Kissoon by Jagdeo; the racially divisive PPP campaign of 2015; and yes, the murderous violence meted out to primarily, but not exclusively, Afro-Guyanese men in the Roger Khan Phantom Gang era: there is no case that has to be made for the linking of the PPP to systemic racism during the latter part of its two-decade tenure in executive government.

When Guyanese voted for the APNU+AFC administration in 2015, however, it was not a mandate for ethnic brinksmanship or competition, but one of healing and the fostering of equity.  As has been the case of deconstructing the established state-sponsored ethnic hegemonies – from the United States to South Africa – the rhetoric of reconciliation has proven far easier than the corrective justice that should rightly precede or at least parallel actual reconciliation.  Against that reality, it is easy for the formerly systematically oppressed individual or representative agency to either become increasingly frustrated at the pace of actual change, or to grasp at imaginary victories in the most innocuous of actions.

Seeing an ethnic victory in the selection of the Chairman of the Elections Commission falls under the latter category and it is a variously dangerous delusion.  Firstly, it serves to further diminish confidence in a public officer who has chosen to serve in the midst of a political firestorm, and to reduce his actual qualifications to less than the incidental characteristic of his ethnic identity.  Secondly, it ascribes to the President motivations that he has neither expressed or incidentally indicated, but which serve to fall directly into the narrative of ethnic rivalry that continues to be crafted by the PPP under Jagdeo.
The position that the President’s decision was ethnically based ignores two things.  The first is that while they were in the significant minority, the opposition leader’s list did in fact contain a handful of Afro-Guyanese.   Even if one were to speculate, and reasonably so, about the presumed bias of some of those offered (Dr. James Rose, former Director of Culture under the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport was a PPP general elections candidate), certainly prominent attorney Teni Housty cannot be accused of any significant ties to Freedom House.

Therefore, claiming an ethnic victory in light of President Granger’s rejecting the lists and choosing a constitutionally qualified candidate is heralding the outcome of a battle in which the former Brigadier-General was not engaged.

There are many issues that need to be frontally addressed when it comes to bridging the racial divide in this country; and certainly the Ministry of Social Cohesion has got to get into high gear considering the racial divisions that have arisen in light of the GECOM Chair controversy.  For their part, however, Afro-Guyanese organisations – and indeed any organisation that purports to represent specific racial interests – need to work harder to ensure that some sense of equity is brought to this society and no political machinery is used to establish an ethnic hegemony ever again.