PRESIDENT, Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali, has re-committed his administration’s desire to embrace a policy of participatory and inclusive governance. This commitment was re-affirmed in recent comments by the President that he is willing to institute a system of governance.

According to the President, that process has already started since the re-election to office of the PPP/C in August 2020 and will be further elaborated upon at three levels: the legislative, the political and at the executive.

The President could not have been more correct when he observed that the current adversarial character of the National Assembly ought not to be a barrier in terms of forging common ground on important national issues. This can be done by way of the several parliamentary committees such as the Public Accounts Committee, the Select Committee, the Natural Resources Committee and several others.

Only recently, the Public Accounts Committee at its several meetings raised concerns on the spending of public finances by accounting officers in the various government departments. Members from both side of the political divide were unsparing in their criticisms on the apparent failure to properly spend and account for money and perceived breaches in the government’s fiscal and accountability guidelines.

In this regard, the role of civil society cannot be overstated. The President noted that he has already begun the process of involving persons who can make a contribution to national development and who are committed to the country’s national interest. Among these are representatives from social and religious organisations, the private sector and labour. “I will continue to meet with them, to benefit from their insights and learn more from their concerns,” said the President.

As it relates to the political opposition, the President emphasised that he remains open to having engagements with the APNU+AFC coalition entity but such engagements have been rendered difficult by the continuing refusal to recognise his administration as legitimate based on the results of the elections which were validated by the Guyana Elections Commission and verified by local and international observers including a CARICOM team of technical observers.

What the APNU+AFC coalition hopes to achieve by continuing to sell a false narrative of being cheated out of office is at best unclear, but it does raise some serious questions regarding its own commitment to a process of national dialogue and reconciliation. For one thing, it raises questions of its own political morality and integrity as a political party when it continues to peddle untruths and unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud when all evidence proved otherwise.

The APNU+AFC will be harshly judged by history if it continues with its false narrative of the PPP/C being an “installed’ regime and of being ‘illegitimate’. Already, there are several from among its own leadership who are unprepared to go along with the current stance of the party. A few have already tendered their resignations and there are several others who have been highly critical of the direction in which the main PNC is currently heading. Members and supporters of the APNU+AFC understandably wanted to see their party in government but not at the expense of tampering with the truth and, even more fundamentally, with the expressed will of the Guyanese electorate in a free and fair electoral contest.

The PPP/C, for its part, has long committed itself to a governance approach that is based on participatory and inclusive governance. In a paper titled ‘Towards greater inclusive governance Guyana- Building Trust to Achieve Genuine Political Cooperation’ which was made public in 2003, the PPP/C outlined detailed measures to achieve a culture of national conciliation and inclusive governance based on greater trust, civility and commitment to national goals.

It is not too late for the APNU+AFC coalition to change course and by so doing set the stage for a new culture of politics based on respect for the democratic will of the Guyanese people. Its past history of rigged elections, it would appear, continue to linger in the psyche of its current crop of leaders. One can only hope that they can liberate themselves from the ‘ghost’ of the past and by so doing, open up new possibilities for a new and more enlightened governance paradigm.