WILL THE ELECTIONS SHAPE GUYANA’S FUTURE DESTINY?

The opening lines of Friday’s editorial in Stabroek News states: “Guyana will hold elections that will shape its future destiny.” Similar words have been written before previous elections. But if I were to choose three elections that shaped Guyana’s destiny, it would be the elections of 1968, 1973 and 1992. 1968 ushered in the era of rigged elections and economic decline. In the 1973 elections the PNC gave itself total power by way of a two-third majority which a large section of the middle class approbated as reflected by the public statement of seventeen of Guyana’s most prominent lawyers supporting a two-third majority for the PNC.

In 1973 the PNC made it abundantly clear that it was prepared to use violence to seize power. Two PPP supporters, Bholanauth Parmanand, 47, and Jagan Ramessar, 17, were shot at No. 63 Village, Corentyne, while protesting the army’s seizure of the ballot boxes. They bled to death at the back of a military vehicle into which they were dumped and thereafter ignored by their killers, as they drove around Corentyne collecting ballot boxes.  The 1973 elections opened the way for the 1980 elections which ushered in Guyana’s presidential system of government which has been most consequential in Guyana’s political development. 1992 restored free and fair elections which have transformed Guyana’s politics by dislodging the PNC from office, introducing the era of PPP governance, entrenching democratic rule and restoring the economy, not that the Opposition agrees with this conclusion.

If, as expected, the PPP is returned to office with a comfortable majority at the elections on September 1, Guyana’s economic destiny will truly be shaped.  We have seen the outlines already. A large portion of Guyana’s income, dominated by the proceeds from oil, is now being spent on health, education and infrastructure. Every indication is that as Guyana’s income grows, these expenditures will grow substantially. This policy has been proved time and again in countries that have shaken off poverty and entered developed or developing stages to be the basic prerequisite for their sustained economic growth. It has been proved that the greater these expenditures, the more sustained the economic growth and development. This strategy has been tried and tested over the past five years and if the next government intensifies this course with greater oil income, Guyana’s future destiny as a vastly developed nation with at least regional, if not international clout, is assured. Guyana’s development would have a positive impact on the economic fortunes of the region.

While this is moving ahead, there is a clear understanding that not only is the oil resource finite but that there is a danger of the development of Dutch Disease. This understanding is leading to governmental emphasis on agriculture, mining and tourism by the encouragement of private investment. On Friday, SN highlighted the building of a coconut estate by Pandit Haresh Tewari at Laluni on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway, which is a truly impressive project. But it is not the only one. There are developments in many other areas that are not receiving as much attention. Hinterland communities are being transformed by investments in micro projects which are transforming lives. Much of this is modest but these developments are mere hints of the destiny that awaits Guyana if the electorate chooses a government that is committed to these objectives and has the capacity to see them through.

The discovery and production of oil has led to demands that poverty be instantaneously eliminated. Guyana has lived with poverty for its entire existence. It is as recent as 1989 that the McIntyre Report placed Guyana’s poverty at just above the level of Haiti. While we have travelled a far way since then, poverty is still at unacceptable levels.  But the experience of other countries has shown that in the best of circumstances, the reduction of poverty is a slow and difficult process, always bedeviled by challenging circumstances. Guyana does not yet have the resources to provide supplements to relieve the burden of the high cost of living that Stabroek News has been highlighting as a focal point of the great challenges that Guyana has still to face. I hope and expect that within the next five years the new government will adopt as one of its commitments to utilize the income from increased oil production to alleviate the high cost of living by increasing the child and/or family and senior citizen supplements in cash or material benefits or both in order to continually reduce the burdens of high cost of living for those who are having challenges. But it should be more targeted. I was grateful for the $100,000. But I, and many like me, do not need supplements.

It is not certain that an increased majority for the PPP will cause it to reflect on measures that it might adopt to reduce tension between the parties or even to consider the possibility that the undercurrent of ethno-political dominance that pervades our political strategies might be alleviated. The heightened tensions between our main political parties have been conditioned by history, fears and allegations. A decisive electoral outcome ought to cause a revision of the political strategies of all political parties. That is a destiny many would welcome.