POLITICKING ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
November 30, 2003
THE DECISION by President Bharrat Jagdeo to have the accuracy of the voters register checked by experts of the international community before the conduct of new local government elections is politically correct and accords with the government's general commitment to electoral democracy.
The main opposition PNC/R must make up its mind: It cannot claim that the voters' register as it currently exists is flawed and may have been tampered with, and at the same time object to independent verification of the database before the machinery is made ready for the conduct of the overdue local government elections.
That the elections have not been held since originally expected in 1994 is certainly not the way to promote what is very much part of so-called "grassroots democracy".
It is, however, more than ironical that the PNC/R should be seeking to parade in the manner in it is doing, having so miserably failed to hold local government elections for more than two decades while maintaining itself in power through consistently rigged elections.
The government, nevertheless, owes it to its own credibility, and in the interest of the multi-party democratic process for improved governance, to expedite the necessary arrangements so that local government elections could take place before new general elections, constitutionally due in 2006.
Making politics is very much the work of opposition parties and the PNC/R specializes in making demands and criticisms, but extremely weak when it comes to offering suggestions of substance and demonstrate a spirit of bi-partisan cooperation in the national interest.
The classic example of this remains the high-level dialogue process through which we so often hear what the PNC/R wants the government to do, but offers little in the way of cooperation. Or, more precisely, what, as a party, it is prepared to do in the interest of compromise.
Indeed, some independent observers of the dialogue process are now asking what has been the dividends, the gains for the government and by extension the state, from the consistent spirit of compromise it has shown since the dialogue started, first with the late PNC/R leader Mr. Desmond Hoyte.
If carefully analyzed, it would be difficult to come up with any clear commitment - not the double-speak statements - by the PNC/R spokesmen on, for instance, encouraging local and foreign investments and in fostering a climate conducive to peace and stability without the self-serving caveats.
A critical review of the dialogue process should help in pointing to what exactly have been the creative contributions of the PNC/R, as distinct from what it wants the government to do.
Cooperation is not a one-way street. One hand can't clap. The absence of the racial conflicts and political violence, normally whipped up when it is politically expedient for the opposition to so engage in destabilization politics, should not be mistaken for bi-partisan cooperation.
Such cooperation is imperative for Guyana's peaceful development and for social justice for all. Therefore, the government and the opposition parties have to do much more to encourage genuine interest in nation building than to expediently recite gains and losses, or blame shifting.