Editorial: How many are we?

Dear Editor, The fact that our Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed us does not mean that he has set us beyond sin and suffering. It means that we must join him in his way of service, humility, and obedience. He said, “The son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”. (Matt. 20:28) Without distinction of nationality, income, intelligence or anything else, we are adopted into the fellowship which wishes us to be a servant along with Jesus. There are those who make Satan’s temptations of power, immortality and spiritual sickness their way of life. They may be almost entirely possessed by the spirit of evil, but we cannot and must not try to be judges of persons. The divisions are between those who try to live accordingly to the word of the Holy Spirit, “I am ready” and those who live accordingly to the word of the tempter “I will not serve”. There is therefore a dividing line. But let us look more closely at where it runs. It runs straight through myself. Part of me says I will not serve, and part of me says I am ready. The good spirit and the evil spirit have their front lines in me. My life is a mystery which I do not attempt to understand, as though I am led by the hand in a night where I see nothing, but can fully depend on the love and protection of him who guides me.

By Mike James

In two weeks, on 15 November 2022, the global population is projected to reach 8 billion (8,000,000,000) according to the World Population Prospects 2022, of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. On 1 July 2023 India's population will reach 1.428 billion overtaking China as the world’s most populous country. The population of our global village is projected to reach a peak of around 10.4 billion people during the 2080s, then level off. What about the Catholic Church? Earlier this year, the Vatican released statistics showing that in 2020 the number of

lion over the previous year to 1.36 billion. This means that 17.7% of the world's population is Catholic, second only to the rising number of Sunni Muslims. Of the total Catholic population, 48% are in the Americas, with 28% living in Latin America and the Caribbean. Less than 20% of Catholics worldwide live in Europe where numbers have fallen sharply in recent years. The number of bishops 6,363 remains constant. The total number of priests reached 410,219 (slightly up, with significant increases in Africa (+1,004) and Asia (+778) but with corresponding falls of priests in Europe and especially in the US where numbers have fallen by 60% in the last 30 years Women continue to form a large majority of full-time church personal with 630,000 religious sisters worldwide, but the numbers have been falling by more than 2% n recent years. On the other hand, the number of Permanent deacons worldwide continues to increase overall, this year by 397 to 48,635. The number of Lay Missionaries worldwide is 413,561, a global increase of 3,121. In the field of education, the Church operates 72,785 kindergartens worldwide attended by 7,510,632 pupils; 99,668 elementary school for 34,614,488 pupils; 49,437 secondary schools for 19,252,704 pupils. It also follows 2,403,787 high school pupils and 3,771,946 college students. Brazil is the country with most Catholics, more than 100 million, followed by Mexico 91 million They are followed by the Philippines, US and Italy. The fall in the number of priests and religious from Europe and North America and the continuous rise (please turn to p4) Dear Editor, Guyana is currently juggling a fossilized economy with stone age politics. Addressing this situation requires fundamental electoral reforms, principally liberating the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) from PPP/PNC bi-partisan domination; creating a strong single seat constituency component and securing gender equality in the allocation of seats. While commending the Minister of Governance for engaging civil society in holding the current consultation on electoral reform, amending technicalities in the Representation of the Peoples Act (RoPA) is not the agenda the country needs. Amending RoPA suggests that the chaos surrounding Guyana’s 2020 election was something new, rather than the norm. It also conveniently casts APNU as the villain, drawing a veil over the extent to which both major parties are at one over resisting any change to their shared control of the electoral system - the cancerous heart of Guyana’s electoral dysfunction. While the major parties skirmish over the details of the RoPA, their track record is unanimous in frustrating fundamental reforms. The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has accepted to attend the consultation both because we believe that conflicts are better addressed by responding thoughtfully to causes rather than passionately to symptoms that allow no compromises. However, the test of the good faith of the Government with respect to electoral reform will be its willingness to allow implementation of approved reforms to the electoral system and the elimination of political parties from GECOM. Both major political parties have successfully resisted similar recommendations from a constellation of domestic and international bodies for more than two decades. The constitutional reform process of 2000 approved implementation of a singleseat constituency. The current allocation of 25 seats to the 10 Administrative Regions (known as the ’Reynolds reforms’) was intended to be an interim, one-off step for use in the 2001 elections with the full system, implemented in time for the 2006 election, that is, 40 individual seats and a National List of 25 seats. In addition to strengthening accountability to voters, rather than the party leadership, those reforms also weaken the power of party leaders to function like tribal leaders, selecting and recalling Members of Parliament at will. However, nothing has been done by either party to this day to complete electoral reform, despite intense pressure, particularly between 2000 to 2006, including a Memorandum of Understanding signed jointly by the ABCE countries, the Presidential Secretariat and the then opposition PNC leadership. The Carter-Price formula whereby the Leader of the Opposition presents the President with a list of candidates suited to be Chair of the GECOM has never been approached with the national interest in mind by either party. While neither party is free from criticism, the antics surrounding the appointment of the current GECOM Chair in 2019 were the most abusive manipulation of it. While recognizing the limitations of the Carter-Price formula, it nevertheless allows for huge improvement if political will, imagination and the national interest is available as the motivating feature of the exercise. The Leader of the Opposition could oversight a professional transparent selection process, engaging a wide cross-section of opinion, the results of which could then be presented to the President, rather than the current partisan scenario. This has never been attempted. The decade of the 2000s saw intensive civic activity from all sectors in Guyana – professionals, faith-based, trade union, indigenous and nongovernmental bodies lobbying for implementation of the approved reforms. The Facing the Future (FtF) campaign of 2012, as one example, saw a conference of thirty such organizations elaborate around 100 specific recommendations grouped in 10 clusters. In addition to domestic activism, CARICOM can chart a long history of interventions to rescue Guyana from its electoral dysfunctionality. Since the 1970s bi-lateral and multi-lateral interventions by CARICOM leaders have occurred seeking to influence every Prime Minister or President of Guyana from Forbes Burnham onwards. They include Prime Ministers Eugenia Charles of Dominica, James Mitchell of St. Vincent, Kenny Anthony of St. Lucia (Herdmanston), Henry Forde (Barbados)and Alister McIntyre (CARICOM & Grenada). In addition to these initiatives, finalizing the 2020 elections required unprecedented Caribbean interventions from the Caribbean Court of Justice, the CARICOM re-count Team as well as the personal influence of former, Bruce Golding of Jamaica and former and current Prime Ministers of Barbados - Owen Arthur and Mia Motley. This is to say nothing of the interventions by resident diplomats from Canada, UK, US and EU. This constant national humiliation is a further consequence of stone age politics that need to be addressed as a far more urgent priority than the technical details of the RoPA. A good place to start an electoral reform process in Guyana would be with the same CARICOM countries, all with Elections Commissions and election rules akin to ours. Yet we seem incapable of learning lessons. Moreover, none of them appear to spend the indefensible amount of money on elections, or unreported money on electioneering as we do in Guyana. Tolerance for civil society and civic space is shrinking in Guyana, encouraged by Government Ministers taking freely to social media trolling organizations and individuals. Electoral discussion needs rescuing from such bi-partisan social media bullying. However, the GHRA remains hopeful that the professional, faith-based, trade union, indigenous and NGOs which engaged in lively debate about electoral reform in the past will re-discover that vigour.