THE CULTURE OF DOMINANCE IN GUYANA’S POLITICS


The Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo, told the press that he and Minister of Social Cohesion, Minister Amna Ally, with the objective of resolving the political impasse that occurred as a result of the PPP and APNU obtaining an equal number of seats in five NDCs and one township elections, had agreed that the mayor and chairs of the NDCs should rotate annually. According to Jagdeo, he was told that President Granger had approved the agreement. He further asserted that the decision was revoked by the Government, which proposed that three of the six bodies should be led by APNU and three by the PPP. Minister Bulkan made no comment on the alleged agreement but appeared to have confirmed the Government’s position of three/three. He said that since the PPP rejected the compromise he proceeded to appoint APNU members as heads of all six bodies.

No one should be surprised that our two main political parties cannot agree on anything. In relation to regional elections the parties tried on two occasions in the past to cooperate without success. In 1994 the parties agreed to share the position of the mayor of Georgetown. When the PPP’s turn came the PNC reneged on the agreement. In the 2006 regional elections the parties obtained an equal number of seats in region 7. An agreement to share the post of chair was discarded by the PNCR when the elections for chair took place a few days later. It is to the credit of the PPP that even with these experiences it sought to address the current impasse by compromise.

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THE BRIAN TIWARI AFFAIR


President Granger’s swift and decisive action, tersely announced, to terminate the appointment of Mr. Brian Tiwari as a government adviser on business, dramatized an event that has titillated the political classes and has energized the media. It is clear that the President allows his officials enough latitude to get on with the job but that he also expects them as politicians, or holding political offices, to be sensitive to political currents so that they know when to consult or seek clearance for decisions which may have political ramifications. No one should now doubt that President Granger is prepared to boldly intervene, if and when he considers it necessary.

Brian Tiwari abandoned traditional methods and began to overreach since 1992. It made him into an enormously wealthy man. Refining basic skills of negotiation and transforming the magician’s mantra of ‘the more you watch the less you see’ into business strategies that won vast variations of already vast contracts, high prices for suddenly scarce quarry products, buying and selling land at enormous profit, acquiring and selling mining properties at even greater profit, BK International has grown into a diverse conglomerate.

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NO POLITICAL COMFORT


The results of the local government elections should give no political comfort to our political parties. The PPP won 48 out of 71 NDC elections, similar to 1994 when it won 48 out of 65 and 28,000 more votes than the APNU+AFC. The APNU+AFC won 5 municipalities, the PPP 3 and 1 is a tie. The turnout at the local government elections was low, at least lower than the national elections, as occurs almost everywhere, and it is therefore unsafe to make any enduring political conclusions from the results. But some glaring issues have emerged.

In the 1994 local government elections for the Georgetown municipality the PPP/Civic won 8 of the 30 seats. The GGG (Good and Green Guyana) won 12 and the PNC 10, a total of 22. In these elections the PPP won only 2 seats. There was a suggestion that the result was a consequence of the PPP/C Government’s abandonment of the City. While this may have played a role, these types of failures have only a marginal impact on our rigid ethnic voting patterns. The PNC’s 40 percent of the vote at the 1992 elections when every political indicator suggested that it should have been wiped out proves the point.

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LOCAL GOVERNMENT


Once upon a time, during the colonial era, Guyana had a local government system that functioned. It emerged from the establishment of village democracy in estates purchased by freed slaves. It did not cover all of Guyana and its functions were limited. But legislation throughout the 20th century improved and expanded the local government and municipal systems. These became so well organized that there was a national body called the Guyana Association of Local Authorities, which had great influence in the early years of our modern political development.

Many might be tempted to attribute the destruction of Guyana’s local government system since 1970, or thereabouts, by the failure to hold no more than two elections since then, as a conspiracy between the main political parties. But it was not. Local governance was a victim of the perpetual struggle for dominance between the two main political parties. For both parties, but for different reasons and in different ways, local democracy became a humbug, and got in the way of the exercise of political dominance, so that after one try each, they discarded local government elections altogether.

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