Constitutional reform: the Diaspora
Given the decades-long effort by governments to effectively organise and use the talent, finances and other resources of the Guyanese diaspora, my attention was recently drawn to an October 2020 study, ‘The Guyanese Diaspora’, done by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which provided some good information, comments and recommendations that should be of interest (https://csis-website-prod.s3. amazonaws. com / s3fs- public/ publication / 201019_ Matera_The_Guyanese_Diaspora.pdf
Following international practice, ‘diaspora’ is broadly described in a two-fold manner: as ‘emigrants and their descendants who live outside the country of their birth or ancestry, either on a temporary or permanent basis, yet still maintain affective and material ties to their countries of origin and as a “state of mind . . . a psychological belonging to a collective culture, host-land or homeland.’ Guyana has a population of 787,000 and about 30,000 persons migrate annually - one of the highest migration rates in the world. Settled Guyanese communities abroad often originate from close-knit communities in Guyana that usually mirror the ethnic and religious characteristics of those communities. These days, most Guyanese emigrate to the United States - 400,000 persons of Guyanese or Guyanese ancestry; Canada - between 88,570 and 200,000 in 2016, and some 30,000 Guyanese live in the United Kingdom. Smaller numbers are scattered worldwide.
The Guyanese diaspora is said to be ‘an educated and skilled community’ with over half of those in the US working in professional, managerial, or sales occupations. In Canada, their main occupations were sales and service; business, finance, and administration; retail trade, and healthcare and assistance. In 2018, remittances from the Guyanese diaspora was US$334m or about 8.1% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Of course, this inflow must be set against an outflow of US$142m and the fact that over 80% of Guyanese graduates migrate annually. ‘Unless the issue of “brain drain” can be addressed through convincing Guyanese with local tertiary degrees to remain in the country and through attracting diaspora members back to the country, development efforts in Guyana will remain undermined,’ the report observed.
Large numbers of Guyanese migrated because of limited employment opportunities, political instability, speaking English, a good level of education and relatively open access abroad. Only about half of all Guyanese now live in Guyana and there is a long tradition of governments trying to leverage diaspora support for economic development and political party financing. However, ‘it is clear that there has not been a clear understanding of the full extent of the human, social, and financial resources offered by the diaspora nor a deliberate strategy on how best to engage the diaspora’.
With the huge discoveries of hydrocarbons, Guyana could become prosperous if its leadership sensibly manages its resources. However, according to the report, it would be naïve to assume that given its history since independence Guyana will be immune to the resource curse; the historic characteristics indicate that the country could be easily susceptible to this condition. Two major largely ethnic political parties, the PPP and PNC have dominated Guyana’s politics since independence in 1966. ‘Divisive politics, weak political institutions, persistent corruption and high levels of tension and latent conflict in the population mostly over ethnic divisions are a very quick indication of how Guyana could easily move in this direction. The problems surrounding the March 2, 2020 national election are a reminder of this reality.’
Governments have not been able to sufficiently interest the diaspora in the economic, political and social development in the country. For example, overseas voting, that may well be one means of do so, began in 1968 (and) was eliminated for the 1992 national elections and is unlikely to be reestablished soon. “Although Guyanese citizens who are still registered to vote can fly back to Guyana to vote in national elections, this requirement serves as a serious limit on the number of Guyanese diaspora members abroad who can vote. Furthermore, worries about potential misuse of this right by both of the leading political parties make serious consideration of a concrete system for overseas voting unlikely at this moment.”
The key recommendation of the report is that the local public and private sectors and Guyanese diaspora communities around the world collectively focus upon establishing broader communications, engagement, and collaboration between Guyana and the diaspora through a “Guyana Global” initiative. This “cloud-based portal, including an online community/platform of diaspora experts, could serve as a framework and a formal means of communication between Guyana and the diaspora community.”
This initial effort should be led by a group of committed individuals from the diaspora and Guyana. “The initiative’s leaders would need to establish their own goals, objectives, code of ethics, and means of operation, as well as its own makeup.” The group would also need to consider including representatives of the Guyanese government and opposition “(meeting a minimum baseline, based perhaps on votes obtained in national elections),” and Guyanese diplomatic representatives in key capitals. A representative of CSIS “could remain involved as an honest and neutral broker, possibly playing a role in the early stages of the effort in convening and facilitating this initiative.”
I want to make two comments. I agree with the report that the diaspora’s right to vote is unlikely to be conceded anytime soon and this is a pity. Given developments in communications, the level of education of its people, Guyana’s small population, level of migration, etc., maximum effort should be made to keep all generations of Guyanese attached, and here political participation can be important. However, the winner-takes-all politics in Guyana prevents that from happening. Indeed, in the context of ethnic voting, the incapacity of any single party to perpetuate itself in Government is viewed as progressive and so in the context of Guyana, allowing the diaspora to vote must be regressive. I consider it a pity because for me the problem is not simply one party having a structural majority but where, in the context of two large ethnic groups sharing the same geographical/political space: the political elites are adamantly failing to respect the structural difficulty the country faces. As a result they continue with the majoritarian winner-takes-all system without truly grasping its negative pervasiveness in spite of decades of political turmoil and the resultant underdevelopment.
Secondly, given the divided nature of Guyana and its diaspora the largely private/civil society structure proposed to successfully initiate and manage the process appears highly utopian where political parties are locked in a zero sum battle for power and the diaspora is so important.
In any case, regardless of how inadequately organised and whether or not their voting is a possibility at this stage, the diaspora continues to make a tremendous contribution to Guyana’s development. Therefore, as the effort proceeds and depending upon how it goes, at any future constitutional reform process the diaspora could be constitutionally recognised as an essential part of Guyana.
Accordingly, a Diaspora Commission much like one of the existing constitutional service and/or rights commissions is perhaps the way to go. Such commissions are not answerable to government or opposition but to parliament and must be “independent, impartial, and … discharge (their) functions fairly (Article 212).” It will be ideally located to continuously press for an expansion of diaspora rights, could craft an agenda similar to that suggested in the report, sensibly configure its membership most of whom will come directly from the diaspora, operate essentially by consensus with rotating chairpersonship and thus cannot be easily be captured or obstructed by any of the political parties. With an active, vocal and connected stakeholder community to stimulate and hold it accountable it is unlikely to exhibit the sluggishness of some of the existing commissions.
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com