ONE would agree that there are some areas of national development that ought not to be subject to Harold Lasswell’s definition of politics, which is ‘Who gets what, when and how.’
Key among those areas are those having to do with projects associated with education, infrastructure and cheap and reliable energy. The rule of thumb should be that once a project is critical to a nation’s long-term development and it follows the law, it should not be subject to the caprices of an incoming government.

And this is where the courts can have a key role to play in terms of providing the necessary guidance and protection against this vagary.
Here in Guyana, the time is ripe for there to be legislative protection for national projects, given that one cannot effectively advance the long-term development of a nation while being restricted by five-year electoral cycles. This consideration intensely comes to bear in relation to developing countries such as Guyana.

Scholarship has established that policy uncertainty and reduced investments occur close to electoral cycles (Canes-Wrone and Park 2012; Julio and Yook 2012).
Added to this is the sister risk: good, productive and efficient national advancement programmes that are part of a sitting government’s vision, being cancelled while on a trajectory to benefit the country and people.

Regrettably, upon the ascension to office of a new government, these programmes could be shelved in one fell swoop.
For example, why should the people be denied cheap and reliable energy that is enshrined in a government project, which is part of the vision of a government that goes beyond the electoral cycle? In the case of Guyana, the current administration is rapidly moving towards the implementation of a ‘Green State Development Strategy (GSDS), which is primarily about renewable energy. This vision, once realised, will definitely benefit the nation.

In democratic societies with intense competition rooted in tribal and ethnic considerations, it is difficult to see the level of political maturity that is required to ensure the national interest is put first.
Be that as it may, there are countries that have found success by enshrining development goals in their constitutions. A case in point is Costa Rica, whose constitution stipulates that at least six per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) must be spent on education; another is that of Bhutan, which states:

“The Government shall ensure that, in order to conserve the country’s natural resources and to prevent degradation of the ecosystem, a minimum of 60 per cent of Bhutan’s total land shall be maintained under forest cover for all time.”
Those nations at reference stand as model global exemplars for rapid ‘green’ development. And there is a direct correlation between their developmental gains and the rule of law.

It therefore follows that national goals connected to cheap and reliable energy should be aided by the rule of law. Put another way, it means that in the case of Guyana, projects that are critical to national development should not be subject to the rigours of Guyanese politics.

There are several caveats in this regard, in that those projects should meet a minimum fiduciary standard to receive judicial protection; and there should be clearly defined guidelines for what constitutes national projects that are crucial to national development.

The word ‘development’ should be banned from the Guyanese lexicon; that is, if successive governments come and go, and the party outside of power waits anxiously to chop a plan that teems with incontrovertible benefits for the nation’s long-term growth.
But one would rather suspect that in the zero-sum game of politics, this is high idealism.