THE recent elections for Toshaos, have demonstrated the coalition government’s commitment to electoral democracy, particularly as it relates to Indigenous peoples being able to elect their community leaders, in a manner free from political interference.

The latter, an essential practice of governance, recently saw PPP/C alleged attempts to derail this very democratic process. What had been reported in the media amounts to the traditional pattern of gross interference by a party that believes that it owns this entire country, inclusive of its six peoples.

For the PPP/C to continue such a practice against the Indigenous peoples, amounts to bullyism, and dictatorship. It is a practice that is peculiar to its manner of treating our Indigenous peoples, such as speaking to them in very derogatory terms, as was the reported manner on occasions, of at least two very senior functionaries from the old regime of the PPP/C.

What the PPP/C must understand is that the days for such disrespect have ended, for Indigenous peoples are no longer treated as lesser light than their fellow Guyanese, by being given outboard motors, chainsaws, and other trinkets. Such could never have been any proper, durable programme for empowerment of hinterland communities and sustained livelihoods for its peoples as formerly carried out by the then past administration.

In similar manner, like the then PPP/C government treated the nation’s sugar workers – as mere electoral conveniences, Indigenous peoples were perceived and treated as such. But those days are over, and Indigenous peoples and their communities are now being truly respected and treated as a people with the right to choose their leaders, and what is best for them. It is their right.

In effect, what is being unfolded since 2015 has been a detailed 10-Point Hinterland Development Programme that is the platform for hinterland empowerment, and subsequent growth and development. These are development pathways that ensure Indigenous inputs into their socio-economic lives. For example, there are no longer so-called Community Support Officers (CSOs) who were in effect young people doing political work for the PPP/C, for a monthly stipend.

Such was a waste of precious human capacity, in addition to taxpayers’ hard-earned money. Instead, since 2015, and in keeping with a coalition government plan of harnessing the creativity of the young Indigenous segment, the Hinterland Employment and Youth Services (HEYS) initiative has been providing skills training, aimed at enhancing human capacity for employment purposes. This means that Indigenous youths are being prepared to participate in the growth and development of their respective hinterland regions, and their communities.

We see this as very vital for the creation of capital towns, the visionary concept that has begun to unfold, with some public services that have already commenced in these regions and their communities. In fact, such skills that are now being facilitated by HEYS will be among those that are going to be pivotal in the plan to make the capital towns, the centres of regional socio-economic development. In other words, the hinterland and its Indigenous peoples are part and parcel of the transformational process that have commenced in their geographical locales.

Thus, it is no mere accident or coincidence that there are now five community radio stations that are broadcasting to residents in their communities, giving them the right to national information. Then there are the 170 communities that will be able to access more than 200 ICT hubs over a five-year period. In fact, many hinterland schools now have WI FI and internet services, in addition to residents who have since commenced accessing internet services.

Introducing the ICT revolution to the vast outreaches of the hinterland, signals that the hinterland and its Indigenous peoples have for too long been kept out of Guyana’s socio-economic development, and that it is time that this grave injustice and anomaly be corrected.

It is time, too, that the PPP/C accepts the fact that genuine democracy is about people making their own decisions about who their leaders must be, and not having any political party foisting candidates upon communities, as it has been attempting to do within Indigenous communities. Not only is such a grave interference in the individual liberty and freedom to choose, but also a denial of a citizen’s right of choice. It is another undemocratic example of the PPP/C’s brand of politics.