592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Future Guyana : Populism or Meritocracy?

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar October 2026

Guyana Must Not Build an Oil Republic on Patronage, Fear and Political Theatre

“One of the burdens that harm our society is ‘digital populism’: excessive individual protagonism, strongman rule, messianism, and the posturing of those who gain popularity simply by appearing more on social media.Another dangerous practice that could derail Guyana’s development and undermine its aspiration to attain “world-class” status is influence peddling—commonly manifested through cronyism and nepotism, the corrosive culture of rewarding “family, friends and favorites” rather than competence, integrity and merit.”

“A form of favoritism within a group that involves bias in granting jobs and benefits to friends or trusted colleagues, affecting the legitimate rights of others, especially in politics and its relations with affiliated organizations. It manifests itself when close associates are appointed to positions of authority without considering their qualifications, in contrast to meritocracy. In politics, the term ‘cronyism’ has a negative connotation and usually refers to the buying and selling of favors, the negotiation of votes in legislative bodies, the granting of benefits to organizations, etc.”

(RAE Dictionary and Nadler, Judy; Schulman, Miriam)

Guyana is being told that it is entering a new era: unprecedented wealth, modern infrastructure, expanded opportunity and national transformation. The promise is real. But so is the danger.

A country does not become developed merely because billions of United States dollars flow through its accounts, highways are commissioned, bridges are announced, and ministers cut ribbons before television cameras.

Development requires something more difficult: institutions that can withstand power, leaders who accept scrutiny, and citizens who refuse to exchange principle for political access.

Guyana’s central question is no longer whether oil will make the country richer. It is whether the country’s political culture will become more democratic, more transparent and more merit-based—or whether oil will finance the old vices on a scale never before possible.

The warning is plain: Guyana cannot build a new republic with the moral habits of the old political order.

“Oil wealth does not erase political corruption, cronyism or authoritarian instincts. It gives them more money, more reach and more reasons to survive.”

The Cult of Political Performance

A troubling form of digital populism is taking root. Political leaders and their defenders increasingly operate as though public performance is a substitute for public accountability.

Every visit becomes a photo opportunity. Every promise becomes a social-media production. Every criticism is met with an online army of defenders, insults, selective statistics and accusations of disloyalty. Ministers appear permanently in campaign mode, displaying projects before the public has been allowed to examine costs, contracts, environmental implications, procurement procedures or long-term maintenance obligations.

This is not transparency. It is political marketing.

The governing PPP-C has become highly skilled at presenting visible development as conclusive proof of good governance. Roads, schools, hospitals, housing schemes and cash-grant announcements are repeatedly used to create an atmosphere in which citizens are expected to applaud first and ask questions later.

But a ribbon-cutting is not an audit. A Facebook video is not a procurement report. A ministerial announcement is not public consultation. And a glossy image of “transformation” does not answer whether taxpayers received value for money.

The opposition, meanwhile, cannot claim the moral high ground merely by criticizing the government’s excesses. It must also demonstrate that it has abandoned the patronage, racial mobilization, opaque decision-making and personality-driven politics that have damaged Guyana for generations.

“A government should be judged not by how often it appears before cameras, but by whether its decisions survive independent scrutiny.”

The Patronage State Is Expanding

The greatest threat to Guyana’s democratic future is not simply corruption in its crude and illegal form. It is the normalization of a patronage State: a system in which contracts, employment, land, licenses, boards, concessions, promotions and access to opportunity are perceived to depend on proximity to political power.

Guyana has long suffered from the corrosive belief that advancement depends not primarily on competence, but on connections—party connection, family connection, business connection, ethnic connection or personal connection.

Oil wealth has intensified the stakes.

The State now has access to unprecedented revenue, and with it, unprecedented capacity to reward loyalty and punish dissent. Major infrastructure contracts, public-sector employment, regional projects, land distribution, housing allocation, local-content opportunities, State boards and public procurement have become areas in which transparency must be non-negotiable.

Yet the public too often receives announcements rather than full disclosure; assurances rather than independently verifiable documentation; and political explanations rather than answers to basic questions.

Who received the contract? Who else bid? What was the evaluation criteria? What are the beneficial owners of the successful companies? What changes were made to the contract after award? Is there a conflict of interest? Has the project remained within budget? Who will be held responsible if it fails?

Those are not opposition questions. They are public questions.

“When citizens must know someone before they can receive fair treatment from the State, citizenship has been replaced by political dependency.”

The Merit Deficit

The problem is not that Guyana lacks qualified people. Guyana has capable public servants, engineers, economists, lawyers, teachers, health professionals, energy specialists, environmental experts and young people with the ability to build a modern State.

The problem is that too often, competence competes with loyalty—and loyalty wins.

Appointments to boards, agencies, diplomatic posts, public corporations, commissions and senior administrative positions must not become rewards for party service, personal allegiance or political convenience. Public offices cannot be treated as extensions of party headquarters.

A government that claims to be modernizing Guyana must be willing to modernize how it selects and evaluates public officials. It must publish criteria for major appointments, protect professional public servants, require declarations of interest, disclose qualifications, enforce ethical standards and remove persons who fail—not merely shield them because they are politically useful.

The same standard applies to the opposition and to civil society. The country cannot condemn cronyism in government while practicing it internally. It cannot demand ethical leadership while promoting individuals whose record consists of abuse, racial provocation, political opportunism or unverified self-promotion.

“A title, party jersey, online following or proximity to power is not a qualification for public office.”

Haste Is Not a Development Plan

The administration often presents speed as proof of competence. Guyana, it says, cannot wait. The country must build now, spend now, expand now and seize the moment.

There is truth in the urgency. Guyana has enormous infrastructure deficits and generations of neglect to overcome. But urgency is not a license for opacity, weak planning or poor oversight

The faster the money is spent, the more carefully the public must examine how it is spent.

Major projects demand published feasibility studies, credible environmental assessments, procurement transparency, clear cost estimates, maintenance plans, independent technical review and meaningful consultation with the communities affected.

They require Parliament to function as a serious forum of oversight, not as a stage for predictable partisan warfare.

This is especially true in the oil sector, where decisions affecting the Natural Resource Fund, petroleum contracts, gas-to-energy arrangements, local-content policy, environmental liability, flaring, offshore safety and the terms under which Guyana’s resources are extracted will define national sovereignty for decades.

A country that rushes into commitments without adequate public scrutiny may discover too late that it has traded long-term national control for short-term political applause.

“A project is not successful because it is announced quickly. It is successful when it is necessary, lawful, affordable, transparent and durable.”

The “Ends Justify the Means” Trap

Perhaps the most dangerous argument in Guyana today is that criticism should be muted because development is taking place.

Do not question too much, citizens are told. Do not demand too much disclosure. Do not make noise. Do not challenge the government while roads are being built, jobs are being created and money is being distributed.

That mentality is the beginning of democratic decline.

A government can build infrastructure and still undermine accountability. It can distribute cash grants and still politicize public resources. It can speak of inclusion while concentrating decision-making among a narrow circle. It can invoke national development while treating criticism as sabotage.

No national project is so important that it must be protected from public examination. No party is so indispensable that it should be exempt from ethical standards. No leader is so effective that citizens should surrender their right to demand answers.

The end does not justify the means—not in a democracy, and certainly not in an oil-rich country where the means involve billions belonging to present and future generations.

“When accountability becomes inconvenient, power begins to confuse itself with the nation.”

Guyana’s Venezuela Warning

Guyana is not Venezuela, and it should not be casually compared to Venezuela. The histories, institutions and political conditions are different.

But there is a warning in every country that allows political power to become permanent, public opportunity to become partisan property, criticism to become an act of hostility, and citizens to become dependent on the goodwill of those in office.

Democratic decline rarely arrives with one dramatic declaration. It emerges through small accommodations: the contract that cannot be questioned, the appointment that cannot be challenged, the critic who is isolated, the reporter who is denied information, the public servant who is sidelined, the procurement process that remains hidden, the law that is selectively enforced, and the citizen who stays silent because they need a job, a house lot, a contract or a favor.

Guyana is at a crossroads. Its oil wealth can fund strong schools, modern hospitals, resilient communities, reliable electricity, national connectivity, economic diversification and a genuinely fairer society.

Or it can finance a more sophisticated version of the country’s oldest failures: political tribalism, dependency, secrecy, cronyism and unaccountable executive power.

“The question is not whether Guyana has money. The question is whether it has the courage to build institutions stronger than the people temporarily controlling that money.”

Guyana deserves more than a richer version of the past.

It deserves a republic in which public office is earned through competence, public funds are protected by transparency, national assets are managed for all citizens, and no political party—regardless of its achievements—can place itself above scrutiny.

The choice is being made now, contract by contract, appointment by appointment, project by project, silence by silence.