By pure chance – and some would add a great deal of APNU+AFC coalition political incompetence – the PPP has been bequeathed with an enormous amount of financial resources. Almost anyone with such resources can become involved in massive construction and distribution, but in terms of national development, the achievement would be constructing and distributing in a generationally sustainable democratic manner. Put another way, are the roads, etc. designed in a manner that fosters nation building and last at least twenty to thirty years? The answer is no: the less said about the roads the better and arguably Guyana has never been more divided. Thus, the PPP goes to its 32nd Congress as an enormous failure because it wallows in a democratic deficit largely of its own making.
Given the PPP objective of establishing ethnic/political dominance, it is forced to operate as if in a democratic environment but does so unilaterally, i.e. without the necessary consultations, compromises, and consensus. Herein lies the source of the democratic deficit, and this autocratic approach pervades political life in Guyana because the PPP must be able to unilaterally make all important decisions and provide all state services if it is to be able to apply the level of discrimination its objective requires.
The Kaieteur News reported that Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo recently announced that his government will investigate the extrajudicial killings that took place between 2002 and 2006. Estimates of these extrajudicial killings range from 1,300 to 400 people, mainly of African descent. This decision by the government came unusually quickly on the heels of the recent comment from the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) that it was disappointed that the regime has not completed the investigation it promised would have been completed by 2018. Indeed, the UNHRC claimed that there are still reports of extrajudicial killings being carried out by the police force and others.
It called upon the government to establish a presidential commission of inquiry to investigate the killings and ensure that all allegations are promptly, impartially, transparently and thoroughly investigated; that perpetrators are prosecuted, and, if convicted, penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crimes are handed down and that full reparation is provided to victims’ families.
The commission of inquiry will only be able to ‘impartially, transparently, and thoroughly investigate’ the above mentioned period if there is some degree of democratic compromise relating to its establishment and operation, but this would be asking too much of the PPP. Guyana’s constitution allows the president to appoint commissions of inquiry and so far they – particularly those having to do with political matters – have been useless. Controversy usually rages over the appointment of the commissioners and their terms of reference, etc.
For example, in 2014, the regime established a COI to inquire into the death of Dr. Walter Rodney and the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) noted that the ‘provocative’ terms of reference firmly inserted the PPP into an inquiry in which it should have been marginal. The release also suggested that the act of establishing the inquiry at a time when elections were in the air appeared the worst form of electioneering. ‘Reluctantly the GHRA feels compelled to conclude that the proposed initiative has more to do with prolonging the ethnic dimension of Guyanese politics than laying to rest controversy over who was responsible for Walter Rodney’s death.’
The constitutional requirement for collective bargaining is denied to keep the workers in the place assigned to them by the PPP’s objective. It must solely determine the emoluments of all public servants, including teachers. Similarly, it starves the city of Georgetown and other local authorities of funds and proper oversight to facilitate its objective of winning African votes by blaming the local bodies aligned to the largely African-supported People’s National Congress (PNC) for nonperformance. It then takes the opportunity it has created to intervene with all manner of isim hoc projects over which the elected councils have little say. Its draconian measures of controlling the local areas even obstruct the people from using local facilities without central government permission.
A decade later, what was said about the Walter Rodney Commission in terms of PPP ethnic electioneering remains the case. The COI into the March 2020 general and regional elections concluded its report in February 2023, a few months before local government elections were held. So here we go again: the PPP intends to use the COI recommended by the UNHRC to mobilise its ethnic base in time for the 2025 general and regional elections, but there is a significant troublesome twist.
This COI is directed towards events during a period when the general secretary of the PPP, Bharrat Jagdeo, was the president, and as I indicated last week, according to Guyana’s constitutional arrangements, the ruling party have de facto control over the executive and the parliament and as a result significant influence over the judiciary. Therefore, the usual partisan and unilateral way COIs have been appointed by the president will not do. Justice will only be done if it is seen to be done. A democratic and open process of developing the terms of reference, recruiting the chairperson, and managing the entire event will be of vital importance if it is to have national and international credibility and not to suffer a similar fate to those mentioned above.
All the talk about ‘One Guyana’ is directed essentially to an African audience and is intended to camouflage the existing democratic deficit. The PPP uses all manner of anti national strategies to solidify its hold over its ethnic constituency, cognisant that these approaches reinforce and prolong the ethnic divide. If the regime does not spot the danger inherent in its adopting the route of the COI on this occasion, it will be interesting to see how it and the opposition respond to the challenge that pits personal and political self-interest against that of the general citizenry and the victims of the 2002-2006 killings and their relatives.