The Cabinet

In the selection of his Cabinet on December 5, President Donald Ramotar has clearly opted for continuity: there were only a few new faces and most of these had served in other capacities in the previous administration. While, as we have pointed out before, President Ramotar has tremendous political experience and knowledge, this will be his first stint in the national Executive. He is to be complimented for going with experience over experimentation.

As the president noted in his brief remarks following the swearing-in ceremony, the new ministers will discover that their veteran colleagues should be helpful in showing them the ropes. And it is a mark of Mr Ramotar’s humility and level-headedness that he implicitly acknowledged that at this stage of his presidency, he also will need their familiarity with the machinery of government. His first official act as president suggests that Mr Ramotar will not be railroaded into intemperate and injudicious actions driven by ego or pressure.

There are many in the public arena of the letters pages of the press and in other media that had suggested there ought to have been a wholesale bloodletting in the Cabinet because of the confluence of the PPP/ C’s reduced popular showing and the concomitant loss of a majority in the National Assembly. Those concerned with the former circumstance suggested that new faces might induce wayward supporters back into the fold.

In the meantime, the beneficiaries of the latter consequence demanded that they be included in the Cabinet.

They backed up their demands with marches in the streets.

But President Ramotar kept his counsel. Both his supporters and his opponents should know that a Cabinet is not just about symbols but more about substance. The wheels of government cannot be allowed to grind to a halt just to send political semaphore.

In the answer he has delivered to his erstwhile supporters, the president demonstrated that he would not sacrifice the security of Guyana at the altar of political expediency. The demands of the opposition, while understandable since they yearn for a taste of executive power, are disappointing since they obviously do not mind placing at risk our sustained but still fragile economic gains.

What is profoundly and unutterably lost on those that have demanded wholesale changes in the Cabinet is that they are only looking at the short-term political fallout of the elections. They take for granted the existential reality of Guyana swimming against the tide in the region to record positive growth, while others have had to resort to the cold arms and conditionalities of the IMF. Our heady state of affairs did not manifest itself through mere happenstance: it was achieved through the hard work and dedicated persistence of the old Cabinet and President Jagdeo.

The Americans have a quaint but salutary bit of advice in these matters, which President Ramotar evidently observed: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The present Cabinet represents an institutional memory on the practicalities of governance that is unmatched in the region. We might as well face another action that the president will take, since he has announced this quite firmly before, which will raise the hackles of some.

This is to seek the advice of ex-President Jagdeo, informally, as he sees fit. Those that have demonised Jagdeo conveniently but disingenuously and dishonestly refuse to acknowledge the seminal role that gentleman has played in returning Guyana to a firm footing. This is not only economically but by every other measure.

This newspaper is not oblivious to the necessity for changes that will have to be made in several areas of governmental activity, which have not performed and delivered to expectations. But we caution that we cannot throw out the baby with the bathwater. We cannot and should not conflate symptoms with causes. We view the appointment of the present Cabinet as a necessary first step in securing our progress.