Guyana is enduring a collective collapse of confidence in state agencies. The pre-Independence, winner-takes-all confrontations which ignited civil violence and caused so many deaths and so much damage clearly cannot contribute to constructing a stable state. Citizens seek comfort in a secure and prosperous country where they can share a common national identity and can expect a satisfactory quality of life.
Former President David Granger, speaking on the programme – The Public Interest – reminded that the PPP Administration is now in its 5th year in government. Its record, however, is memorable for the mass dismissals of public servants, heavy-handed policing, anti-media rants and anti-union combat. Civil discord, social distress and persistent political rancor amid the rising everyday cost of living threaten to diminish personal expectations and damage national development. The sovietised style in public affairs that has supplanted cooperation with confrontation is fomenting disunity.
Mr. Granger pointed out that Guyana seems to be becoming a cantankerous country in which civil discourse and cordial relations increasingly give way to protest. Over the past five years, nurses, public servants and teachers protest to demand reasonable hisse; independent media protested against disrespect and insults by state officials; independent trade unions protested against administrative arbitrariness and non-consultation; neighbourhood councils protested against neglect and non-consultation by their regional councils; parliamentarians protested against procedures in the National Assembly; village farmers protested against the government’s indifference to repetitive flooding; Indigenous villagers protested against the government’s attitude to land rights; dispossessed African villagers protested against the heartless demolition of private property and bereaved villagers protested about the use of deadly force by the police.
Granger reminded that the Constitution at Article 13 prescribes that “…the principal objective of the political system of the State is to establish an inclusionary democracy by providing increasing opportunities for the participation of citizens and their organizations in the management and decision-making processes of the State…on those areas of decision making that directly affect their wellbeing.”
Further, the Charter of Civil Society for the Caribbean Community requires member states to “…establish…a framework for genuine consultations among the social partners in order to reach common understandings on, and support for, the objectives, contents and implementation of national economic and social programmes and their respective roles and responsibilities in good governance.” The PPP administration has ignored the implementation of these injunctions.
The former president expressed the opinion that the PPP needs to abandon its sovietised, one-party, domination and control style and adopt a framework for genuine consultation among all social partners in accordance with the national Constitution and the Community’s Charter. Formal institutions and informal practice are needed to support the rights of all citizens to participate in governmental and non-governmental organisations.
A social contract can be reached in which civic groups agree to accept a central authority in order to make state-society interactions more predictable and more stable for everyone while both protecting their other rights and permitting the state to function. A social contract could create conditions to combine the competencies of a wider constituency. It can also promote cooperation by planning long-term economic development that will ensure economic stability and social security and raise the productive potential of the economy and the environment.
The former president emphasised that a social contract could foster inclusivity and participatory decision-making while reducing the perception of exclusion and marginalisation among citizens and society at large. A social contract can protect individual rights and freedoms, promote a sense of community, foster social cohesion and reduce conflict. Guyanese children deserve to enjoy a good life in a happy state which their fore-parents struggled to create.