Guyana's Bharrat Jagdeo should have learnt by now that democracy is difficult business, harsh in its demands of those who practise it, but none better to be in; that is, for the citizens of a country who live under a regime of democracy.

What makes this form of government so hard to manage and so chafing of those it invites to exercise authority is democracy's insistence on the abhorrence of extremes and absolutes. So, it hands power to the majority, but demands that this must be balanced against respect for, and protection of, the rights of the minority.

Power, therefore, is always open to challenge, guaranteed by the individual's right, to be constrained only in very limited circumstances, to freedom of expression. Indeed, it is this right which underpins other individual rights and freedoms, which in turn form the foundations of democracy.

Mr. Jagdeo is still a relatively young man. Yet, he is old enough to be aware of the atrophying impact on a society when free expression is constrained and democracy is undermined, as happened in Guyana during the regime of the late Forbes Burnham, who he is fast growing to resemble.

The irony is that the political party, the People's Progressive Party (PPP) which President Jagdeo now leads, was a primary complainant against Mr. Burnham's administration, whose route to curtailment of free expression, and hence of the weakening of democracy, was by undermining the press. Of course, Mr. Burnham didn't decree the closure of newspapers, but sought to achieve his ends by the economic strangulation of those who were free and independent. He made the sourcing of newsprint by the independent press almost impossible.

Another irony of currents in Guyana is that the Stabroek News was among the newspapers that felt the impact of Mr. Burnham's stomping of the press. He didn't like much Stabroek News' campaign for free expression and democracy which, inherently, was in the interest of and was indeed hailed, by the PPP and its then leader, Cheddi Jagan. There is no disputing that Stabroek News, by its campaign for the freedom of expression guaranteed in the Guyana constitution, played a not insignificant role in the eventual return to democracy in Guyana, of which the PPP has been a major beneficiary.

But politicians with instincts to absolutisms, especially of power, don't much like these freedoms; therefore, they don't much like spunky newspapers whose behaviour epitomises rights and freedoms which, really, are rights shared with individuals. As, unfortunately, Mr. Jagdeo is proving.

The Jagdeo Government has, for months, cut off advertising from the Stabroek News, spuriously arguing that it is for economic reasons. But this newspaper remains the country's most widely circulated and most widely read.

The truth is that Mr. Jagdeo and his government don't like Stabroek's journalism. Like good newspapers, it holds up a mirror to Guyana for the country to see itself and what is reflected sometimes demands trenchant criticism of the Government. But that is part of the compact between newspapers and the societies they serve. It is expected in liberal democracy.

What Mr. Jagdeo fails to realise, as we have noted in these columns before, is not his or the party's money that is spent when state agencies advertise; it is the people's. He has no moral or legal authority to use taxpayers' money to pursue private or political vendettas.

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