…by coalition
Jagdeo’s No-confidence Motion against the Government, which will be debated this afternoon, has really made the parties in the PNC-led coalition bassidy. They’re all running around helter-skelter like chickens without heads! Since the announcement, they don’t seem to have even sat down together to coordinate their response. So each of them has been squawking furiously to assure their supporters they have things under control. While watching each other like (chicken) hawks to figure out who will be voting their conscience!
Having a conscience, of course, is verboten in the paramount party that tells its members what to think. Nagamootoo was first to squawk – but then, bereft of a portfolio, save his column in the Chonic – he has time on his hands to feed his paranoia about his bete noir, Jagdeo!! The PNC hasn’t said anything PUBLICLY, but from the PPP whip, Gail Teixeira’s letter to the Police Chief, it would seem – like with all other high-stakes meetings of Parliament – they’ve signalled their street forces in Georgetown to flex their muscles.
Teixeira revealed the party had heard about “ominous” plans for Government supporters to disrupt the proceedings both from without – by preventing the PPP MPs from entering the Public Buildings compound or from inside by creating a ruckus. There is, of course, the instance earlier when a Government supporter was allowed to enter the Chamber dressed in a Santa suit and challenged the Opposition Leader with a dictionary. It could’ve well have been a bomb.
But rather than exhorting his Police Force to heighten their precautions, up comes Public Security Minister Ramjattan to demand Teixeira provide details of the plans!! This is eerily reminiscent of the situation in the 1960s when Janet Jagan told the then Police Commissioner about plans they’d heard about to raze Wismar. The CoP sat on his hands and the disaster of Wismar ensued.
But even if Ramjattan wasn’t just playing to the gallery, why didn’t he ask his AFC Leader Raphael Trotman of details of the “diabolical” PPP plans HE said he’d heard about for the same day?? Or is Ramjattan – like the leaders of the rest of the mini-parties – just eager to prove to the PNC they’re not “voting their conscience”?? The GAP also came out with a press release to assure the PNC there’s no gap in their support!! The only one who was silent was Keith Scott of the…what was that again? …the National Front Alliance. Could he be thinking of bucking the PNC after all the humiliations they piled onto him since 2015??
Well, we will find out today who have consciences or who’ve sold theirs for a mess of pottage!!
…on Christmas traffic
This can’t be a coincidence: it has to be a (maniacal) plot by the PNC leader to starve the business community in Georgetown to death for daring to still accept that the PPP is a legitimate organisation in Guyana. Your Eyewitness is talking about the continuation of the blocking off of the major entry points into the shopping district for this – the busiest shopping time of the entire year!!
My dear reader, you’ve got to experience this strangulation to appreciate its impact. For those brave (and patient) souls who survived the storming of the barricades that were thrown up for blocks around the Public Buildings, by the time they got into the stores they’re too surly to shop. Now today, just a few days before Christmas, when the last great surge of Christmas shopping is nigh upon us, not only are the barricades up again for the no-confidence debate – the Government’s closed off Mandela Ave for those who might want to enter from the North to shop!!
“Bring it on!!” they said to Jagdeo who wanted to defer the barricades.
…on mail
As Guyana rushes pell-mell to catch up with the rest of the world to switch from “snail” mail to email, the Guyana Post Office Corporation’s handing out mailboxes to encourage its use!!
