The lobbyist
Kaieteur News – Forbes Burnham desperately sought an audience with the then President of the United States, Jimmy Carter. He never did. Devolved documents detailed the futility of his constantly-criticized efforts.
Guyana is not high on US priorities. The United States Secretary of State only mentioned Guyana in his public briefings relating to the elections. Apart from that, Guyana would have been furthest from his mind. Prior to Pompeo’s intervention, US pronouncements on the Guyana elections were made through lower-level officials, such as, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Michael Kozak.
Any Foreign Minister and Guyanese diplomat will find it very difficult to have a meeting with the US Secretary of State. A request for any such meeting is likely to be directed to a low-level function.
But in terms of lobbyists, they have the connections and influence to engage with top US officials, right up to the President of the United States. Lobbyists’ job is to connect people with policy makers and they have the means to do this. All you need is a few phone calls.
So it makes practical sense for the PPP / C government, which has vital interests with the United States, to keep lobbying companies if it needed to engage with high-level US officials. From a financial point of view, it might be cheaper for the Guyana government to hire a lobbying company rather than having consular diplomats in major chapels in the world. So it makes sense for the Guyana Government, facing a continuing bell from Venezuela, to hire lobbyists to represent it in Washington.
However, the Opposition feels mistaken that our local diplomats can achieve the same objectives as lobbyists. The Opposition is wrong. They compare chalk with cheese.
No local diplomat will have the kind of access to US officials that lobbyists enjoy. The lobbyists would represent multiple clients and would be well known to top US officials. They can open doors and make things happen. And in Washington this doesn’t come cheap.
Effective diplomacy costs money. The Guyana Embassy in Washington will hardly have the resources to host a monthly cocktail to court foreign dignitaries, much less to be able to make the connections for easy access to top US officials and legislators.
The PPP / C has long understood the importance of retaining lobbyist services. Even the tight-knit Cheddi Jagan, while in Opposition, was forced to hire Paul Reichler’s services to lobby for free and fair elections. And that lobbying was effective because important statements emerged from Senator Edward Kennedy and from then US President George Bush, who made it clear to Desmond Hoyte that his rigging days were over.
Guyana has a number of strategic interests that they need to promote in Washington. One of these, as mentioned before, is the prestigious Venezuela. It is feared, given the internal problems in that country, that Venezuela might be ready to strike in Guyana’s oil fields. Washington will be an important ally in foiling any such attack.
A second strategic interest is the continuing threat to local democracy posed by the APNU + AFC’s main Opposition. Washington is well aware of the attempts made to use the murders of two teenagers to fake internal conflicts. Guyana will need U.S. support to thwart any future efforts to overthrow local democracy and throw the country into unrest that may affect U.S. economic interests.
The related issue of visa restrictions imposed on former APNU + AFC government officials, which the United States considered central to undermining democracy, remains. This is an extremely good issue for the new government. On the one hand, he most likely would want these restrictions to continue as a means of punishing those who supported election rigging and to prevent any such behavior in the future.
The difficulty arises in the sense that such representation cannot be left to country diplomats as it would raise concerns about whether official channels were being used for party purposes. The PPP / C would have to remember to speculate that it may be using lobbyists for party purposes, all the more since it is the same company that used the PPP / C during the election rigidity while in Opposition.
In the circumstances, it would be better to advise the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to report regularly to the National Assembly on the work done by the lobbying company, and in particular to disable any of the idea that the company is either It is used for party purposes or as a means of repaying debts owed to the management company.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper.)