A month ago, July 9, to be precise, my Kaieteur column for that day was entitled: "Last throw of the Dice." In case you didn't read it, it dealt with the impending visit of world renowned mediator, Jimmy Carter. President Bharrat Jagdeo issued an invitation for talks with Mr. Carter. There is nothing I can add to that article, and I thought of asking the editor to reproduce it as my column today because the arguments therein are as pertinent now as when I wrote it a month ago.
This article here is a re-emphasis of those arguments of July 9. One particular facet of that column needs to be stressed upon - when civil society and the opposition meet with Mr. Carter- they must insist that the ruling party give an undertaking to pursue the principles of good governance.
Good governance is not an elusive term like democracy. I believe Guyana is a democratic country but it does not practice good governance. Good governance is a process of which you can clearly delineate its parameters.
Mr. Carter is one of the most respected citizens of the international community. No one has ever challenged his credibility to be a dispassionate and honest broker. He travels the world in two capacities - to observe and pronounce on the fairness of national elections held in controversial polities and to mediate between ruling parties and oppositions. His latest journey was Venezuela. His efforts have ensured that the opposition will have their re-call ballot.
No one can be deceived that Mr. Carter has come today into this land because of talks with the President about the office of Carter Centre staying in Guyana. This is a polity with enduring troubles and pending disasters. There are very few persons on this planet that will not admit that Guyana for over a half of a century has been a sad case of post-colonial failure both in terms of economic development and political progress. Mr. Carter's first visit here unlocked the doors that opened up endless possibilities. The possibilities failed to achieve visibility.
Mr. Carter has a pool of researchers that work with his foundation entitled the Carter Centre. Two of those researchers told Dr. Daniel Kumar and I at UG that they consider Guyana a worst case-scenario. Just as they told us that, they must have told their boss that too. So Carter comes here knowing what he has to do. I would like to think that there are two items only on his agenda.
One is to tell the opposition that they either have to remove the contest of elections as part of their political philosophy and operate on another dimension that would be effective as if they were a parliamentary opposition. Or if they are going to participate in the electoral process then they have to, as part of civilised conduct, accept the results of the poll once they are certified to be wholesome by the world's most respected governments and observers. Guyana and the Caribbean cannot go on having the PNC claim every national poll was rigged simply because they lost.
Our country has fixed racial patterns of voting, and if based on race the PNC loses, then, sad as it may be to all the people of the world (and it is to this writer), that is the reality. Having lost the election, the PNC must use perseverance, ingenuity and political finesse to see that the winning party practices democracy. Many constitutional changes have been done since 1992 through that avenue.
The second pursuit of Mr. Carter, I honestly believe is more important than the first. No matter how you look at it, the PPP has more power to change this country for the better than the opposition. The PPP possesses state power. Mikhail Gorbachev, Pierre Trudeau and Chavez of Venezuela have shown how history can be changed by the enlightened use of power, specifically done with that single purpose of making a country a better place. Mr. Chavez is not in the class of Trudeau and Gorbachev, but if he is advised astutely, and if he can control his temper and his emotions, he can do wonders for Venezuela.
The ruling PPP continues to run Guyana within the culture that they know best, the style of Forbes Burnham. The rule of government where the possessive mentality dominated was present under Burnham, and is the same under the PPP.
Government behaves as if it owns the country. It is this writer's honest opinion that the cancerous agent of party paramountcy is seen by the ruling party as one of the attractive formulas to preserve control over Guyana's resources.
This writer would be the last to say that the PPP's practice of party paramountcy is the same as when Burnham was in charge. Much of the substance is gone but the ideological acceptance is there and has been adopted and adapted. Few people in this country know how party paramountcy operates under the PPP, but it is there. If you researched it, you will see it.
I have been informed that a doctor who specialises in treating people was given a scholarship to study waste disposal in Japan. It was a free scholarship, then, let's send one of our own. There is party paramountcy for you. This doctor will come back, continue to practice medicine, and someone who could have utilised those skills lost out. Guyana lost out too.
Having said all of this, I return to the point of July 9 that needs to be emphasised here. When civil society groups meet Jimmy Carter, they must implore that the ruling party seek to involve a wider participation because the PPP does not have the skills on its own. Guyana hardly has a human resource base. How then can the PPP rely on its own people exclusively? These civil society groups should point Carter in the direction of empowerment of constitutional institutions. In this way, expanding government is achieved.
Mr. Winston Murray of the parliamentary opposition has told the media that the economic committee he heads found that a regional officer was overpaid. His committee then ordered that the official must have deductions made to his salary as the form of repayment.
Mr. Murray said that Dr. Roger Luncheon intervened and ordered that the repayment process be halted. Who is superior in terms of constitutional power, Parliament or the Presidential Secretariat? As I said in my July 9 article, I believe this is Carter's final rendezvous with Guyana, and Guyana's last chance for survival.