No one has ever explained how the PNC/R can impose radical reform on the PPP/C
Stabroek News
May 17, 2002
Dear Editor,
I write in response to the editor's note to a letter from Mr Manzoor Nadir. I do not intend to address Mr Nadir's remarks; he has been well rewarded for his new views. I cannot allow your remarks to go unchallenged i.e. "the constitution reform process was intended to confront this problem and that it did not do so. The main reason for this was because the PNC/R did not place before the Consti-tutional Reform Commission a vision for structural change. As such, therefore, the PNC/R has neither articulated a vision for the future, and nor has it accepted the role of the more traditional opposition."
Your comments which have been consistently reflected in many of the editorials and opinions offered by the Stabroek News are both unfair and based on an incorrect reading of the facts. 1. The PNC/R claims with strong evidence that the state is in difficulty precisely because we are not allowed to function as a traditional opposition.
Parliament rarely meets, questions to ministers are not put or answered, members' days are not held, ministers do not always answer questions in committee, the regional and local government bodies controlled by the PNC are not properly treated, the committees in PNC/R regions are controlled by the PPP/C. If the traditional role of an opposition were respected in Guyana, a good deal of the difficulty in Guyana would disappear. The PNC/R is fighting for the kind of parliamentary rights that are taken for granted in democracies. The view that once you hold crooked elections and get your friends to endorse them you have democracy is not new to Guyana. Neither has the end product been any different.
2. The PNC\R has never publicly or in the Constitutional Reform Commission claimed that it was interested in political office through the back door. Our position onchanges to systems of governance was derived from a well-ventilated and public debate including well-publicised positions on power sharing and other forms of government. The PNC position was a consensus which said in summary that if the system of governance was opened up to depoliticise many functions and if institutions such as parliament and the commissions were to function more fully, this would represent a degree of inclusiveness which would remove many of the insecurities. Even those changes which we recommended have not yet been implemented. I defy the Stabroek News to identify the nature and content of the PPP/C positions on any matter of reform in governance.
3. You knew enough about the working of the Constitutional Reform Commission to recognise that every move forward was like extracting bad teeth from a tough jaw. The civil society representatives were often very useful. A quick perusal of the records, however, does not turn up a single innovation from the PPP/C. You also know that to get anything approved, it required the agreement of the PPP/C and their surrogates in civil society who objected to every suspicion of radical change. How can it be rational to lay the blame for a lack of radicalism on the PNC/R? Your reporters heard the debates and the minutes and voting of the commission are public record. If you do not believe me, ask any of the non-partisan members whether it was not true that very often, to get any movement, the PNC/R had to go in to secret and hush hush back door negotiations with the leader of then PPP/C delegation to get movement on even then most modest of changes in matters like the electoral system. Since the PPP has the voting majority in parliament and had it in the commission, no measure however innocuous could pass unless the PPP/C aggress. It is nonsense to keep on blaming the PNC/R. And even when changes were made, the PPP/C would change their minds after consultation with Mrs Jagan. And even then they would change their minds when the matter went to parliament. And even then they could change their minds at implementation stage and put us in the mess we are in today. The position of the PPP/C is that the 1980 constitution is a fine document and the only problem was who has the power. The PNC/R view is that the whole operation of the state and the constitution that informs it is out of step with modern realities and requires new instruments and organs to take us forward. If our views on reform are not radical enough for you, I sincerely regret it. No one has ever explained, however, how the PNC/R is supposed to impose radical reform on the PPP/C.
4. The PNC/R has never accepted your view that it needs to crawl on its knees and accept a few token portfolios as guardians of an ethnic enclave. We are and strive to be a national party. We intend to win office by electoral processes and to prove to the world that we in Guyana can be modernised and liberalised.
The corrupt and incompetent crew of which so many are protective with their murderous gangs are not the only path for Guyana. The corrupt contracts and floating wharves, our reputation as the sleaze capital of the Caribbean are not inevitable. In any case, the PNC/R would have to be very foolish to abandon the large numbers of people in its membership and support who are not African to become a sectarian tribal pre-modern rump.
Yours faithfully,
Deryck M Bernard