Building Trust

VICE-PRESIDENT and PPP General-Secretary Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, at a recent press conference, said that the building of trust among the two major political parties is an important pre-requisite for any movement in the direction of shared governance.

Shared governance at the level of the executive has been on the national agenda from decades ago, but because of the intransigence of the PNC it never materialised.

The records will show that during the early 1960s, the PPP offered to share the Cabinet on a half and half basis but the offer was rejected by the then leader of the PNC Forbes Burnham, who was prepared to sacrifice the good of the nation on the altar of political opportunism.

His “leader or nothing” mantra has become ingrained in the political lexicon of the country and would haunt several subsequent initiatives by the PPP in the search for a political solution to our ethno-cultural diversity.

The fact is that the PPP has always taken the initiative to find a political solution to our fractured politics even though the party has consistently won all democratic elections since 1953, when elections were held for the first time under universal adult suffrage.

It is an established fact that all elections from 1968 to 1992 were massively rigged by the PNC to perpetuate its political life.

During that period, the PNC showed little if any interest in any attempt to share power and at one time declared itself as the Bolshevik (majority) party and rather derisively dismissed the PPP as the Menshevik (minority) party. And in a display of political arrogance, the Constitution was amended to refer to the Leader of the Opposition as “Minority Leader.”

All of that is now, as it were, water under the bridge but the quest by the PPP for inclusive and participatory forms of governance was never put on the back burner.

In fact, the PPP/C has put in place several policy interventions to deepen the democratic processes, including the Parliamentary Management Committee and the establishment of several sectoral committees chaired by opposition parliamentarians.

There are also several constitutional rights commissions comprising representative organisations, including that of the political opposition.

As pointed out by Vice-President Jagdeo, the PPP has no difficulty with taking the issue of governance to an even higher level.

The PPP/C in its 2020 Elections Manifesto signalled an interest in constitutional reform to further deepen the governance model, and work on the constitutional reform process has already commenced by the PPP/C administration. But, as observed by Dr Jagdeo, there has to be some seriousness on the part of the PNC if the process is to be advanced.

According to the Vice-President, if the PNC wants to meaningfully engage in such discussions, it has to “move away from racism and it has to commit to democracy.” Its record so far has been anything but encouraging and there is still a strong element of distrust as to the willingness of the PNC to put its dismal political past behind it.

The PPP has never been opposed in principle to the idea of shared governance but the actions of the PNC, especially under its current leadership has not generated any hope that the party is interested in such an outcome.

In any event, as observed by Dr Jagdeo, any form of shared governance at the level of the executive cannot be imposed from the top, but has to be mandated by the people, possibly by way of a referendum.

Building an environment of trust is a necessary prerequisite for shared governance. For that to happen, there has to be a commitment by the parties involved to shared values, including adherence to democratic norms and the rule of law, something which is currently lacking because of the politics of intransigence and deception by the main political opposition.

 

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