The President’s Linden Visit

guyana chronicle editorial

ON Thursday last, Chairman of the Linden Interim Management Commitee (IMC) Orrin Gordon was reported in the Stabroek News as lamenting what he thought was the government’s indifference to addressing the myriad problems facing the community.

He called on the councillors and, by extension, the people to get up and begin to fight to get government’s attention. Implicit in his reported comments was the suggestion that having voted in large numbers for the governing coalition, Lindeners deserved much more attention from the government. Then, the following day, the president paid a visit to Linden. It is very difficult to convince the public that there was not a linkage between the chairman’s comments and the President’s visit. Whether Gordon’s assessment of the situation is accurate or not, the fact that he was moved to make such public comments should cause the country and the government to take note. He is not known as anti-coalition. In fact, those close to him have reported that even though he has never mounted a party platform, he has been very supportive of some of the parties in the government. We must note that his comments come weeks after the Prime Minister announced that he was moving to ensure that the region gets the long-promised television station. We know that Linden and Region 10 have had a complex relationship with the PNC government, 1964-92. While the town voted for the PNC, it was also fertile ground for the WPA and Walter Rodney, the then radical opposition to the government. We know that the relationship with the recently deposed PPP government was hostile. Things reached confrontational levels in 2012 with the mass movement against the threat to remove the electricity subsidy to the town and culminated with the shooting of three demonstrators in the vicinity of the bridge that links McKenzie and Wismar. We know that prior to the 2015 elections, there was a public fall-out between rival factions in the Linden PNC, with its national leader, now-president David Granger being accused of taking sides. Popular and outspoken Region 10 Chairman Sharma Solomon even mounted a challenge to Granger’s leadership of the party. Other PNC stalwarts with links to the region, including Aubrey Norton and Vanessa Kissoon, also seemed to be at odds with the leadership of the party. In the circumstances, many doubted that the APNU would have been able mobilise the community to repeat its solid support at the 2011 elections. All of that changed with the forging of the coalition. Linden and Region 10 actually bettered their 2011 support. In the wake of the coalition’s victory, all seemed to be well again. Even the removal of Sharma from the chairmanship of the region did not engender much protest, if any at all. It is against that background that the IMC chairman’s recent complaints should be understood. They raise the larger question of governance in politically divided societies such as ours. After more than two decades of neglect by the previous regime, it is understandable that the government’s supporters would crave instant attention from their leaders. But it is also understandable that the new government, in the face of an aggressive opposition, would be very careful about how it deals with its own support base—it does not want to be seen to favour its base over that of the other party. Of course ours is an ethnically grounded pluralism that carries with it deep insecurities and suspicions. The big challenge for the government is how to balance correcting the neglect of its constituency and its duty to govern the entire country without bias. It would seem that Linden has fallen victim to the government’s caution as it relates to its constituency. While Gordon has not explicitly said so, drawing that inference from his comments would not be out of place. It is a problem that the government must address sooner rather than later. For that reason, President Granger’s surprise visit to Linden the very next day was most instructive. The President, or his government, is not likely to say that the visit was in response to Gordon’s comments. But the timing cannot be mere coincidence. Whatever the situation, the President’s visit was the correct response. That he did not wait for the matter to mature is smart politics. It may tell us something about the Granger praxis that is worth paying attention to. If the enthusiastic response he got from the residents is anything to go by, he seems to have done the right thing. Although the content of his announcements was not new, his very presence is what was needed. The people needed to see and hear from their President in person—pure and simple. Governments have tended to underestimate the power of constant contact with the people. President Granger’s whistle-stop meetings in Linden were what the proverbial doctor ordered. We hope that it was not a one-off gesture.