Another challenging year

Let me begin by extending best wishes to all for the year 2023, another challenging one before us. I must also offer my apologies to readers of the column for its absence last week for personal reasons on my part. As I write, the 2023 Budget has been presented by Finance Minister, Camillo Gonsalves and Parliamentarians are engaged in the annual debate on its contents. I can only hope, like many other concerned Vincentians, that the Budget debate will bring out the best in our parliamentary representatives and that they would opt for the high road and not degenerate into verbal brawls to express their disagreements.

The global situation with the exercise of democracy gives great cause for concern for there are many negative signs. These sank to a new low in the United States of America (USA), the largest democracy in the western hemisphere, two years ago when at the instigation of defeated presidential candidate, Donald Trump, there was an outrageous and treasonable attack on the US capitol in Washington, the seat of American democracy.

It was none other than an attempted coup, which fortunately failed.

It is significant to note that Trump, while President, had publicly indicated that he would not accept the results of the 2020 presidential election if they were not in his favour and continues to this day to perpetuate the ‘Big Lie’ that he was the winner, and that the presidency was stolen from him. It was being duped by this lie that led his supporters, a combination of some of the worst elements of American society, to storm the Congress and even to threaten the lives of congressional representatives, including Trump’s Vice President himself.

What is significant is that this is a trend that is growing dangerously. The latest manifestation of this came last weekend in Brazil, the second largest democracy in this hemisphere.

Again, there was a storming of the seat of parliament by supporters of Jair Bolsonaro who lost the presidency to the populist leader and former President, Lula Da Silva.

Like Trump’s misguided supporters, they too stormed the Parliament, which luckily was not in session, Lula having been sworn in on January 1. It is important to make a connection with the failed US uprising, in that Bolsonaro, like Trump, had disputed the results of the elections and beforehand had refused to commit himself to accept the results of the elections.

It is a most worrying, and very dangerous trend. We here suffered post-election trauma in 2010 and 2015 when opposition supporters, at the instigation of their leaders, staged protests on the grounds that those elections were stolen from them. More and more, around this hemisphere and further afield the trend is growing to reject the results of elections if you are not successful. In Peru, there was a blatant and racist refusal to accept the presidential victory of the indigenous leader, Luis Castillo.

Every obstacle was placed in the way of Castillo being able to govern until finally, he, the democratically elected President, was overthrown and now has been thrown in jail.
Democracy cannot be exercised from the standpoint that election results are only respected when they are in your favour. If there are deficiencies in any system it is important to try and have them rectified before the holding of elections and not to wait until after elections to cry “cheat” if one has lost.

It also jeopardizes the lives of innocent supporters and undermines the very institutions of democracy themselves.

My hope is that our Parliamentarians would reflect on some of the more sordid exchanges in the House in the past and rise above them, controlling their tempers and language while robustly advancing their ideas for progress and development. We have come too far to descend into puerile “bad behaviour”.

One aspect of our current situation which is sure to attract attention is the continuing spate of murders,which reached a new high in 2022. While murder is high crime, it is important for a correct and sober analysis to be made of the situation.

What stands out is that in the vast majority of the murders, the gun is the murder weapon, almost exclusively, illegal guns. We cannot successfully address the murder spree without addressing the gun problem.

Where do these young men get these guns? Who is responsible for the importation of these weapons of death?

Some years ago, the government initiated a Gun Amnesty programme, but what were the results?

What conclusions were drawn, that it was useful or useless? What lessons were drawn from it? The Prime Minister himself has echoed concerns, raised by CELAC, the hemispheric community of Latin American and Caribbean states about the proliferation of guns and their origin in the USA. The hemispheric states want the USA to take positive action to prevent the export of such illegal weapons to the rest of the hemisphere.

Frankly speaking, given the deaf ear in the USA itself to deafening calls for gun control, there cannot be much hope for a positive response.

Yes, these are but a few of the challenges before us as we proceed in 2023. We need great fortitude, courage, wisdom and collective purpose to tackle them.

Renwick Rose is a community activist and social commentator.