…Guyana
Your Eyewitness has a confession to make: Yesterday’s column, “The Day after the meeting”, was submitted even before the meeting between Granger and Jagdeo ended. And, sadly, he didn’t have to change a single word, all because he knew the kind of man Granger was, both individually and as the leader of the PNC. There was no way he’d do anything for the greater good.
To the PNC, they come first, second, third…and all the way to whatever number you want to count. Why? Because they’re convinced the PNC is Guyana and Guyana is the PNC, so whatever is good for the PNC HAS to be good for Guyana. So, here it was, Guyana poised on the cusp of the greatest constitutional crisis in its history, but since its resolution MIGHT result in the removal of the PNC (let’s call a spade a spade) from power, then to hell with Guyana!
It’s always been so! In 1968, when the UF threatened to leave the PNC/UF coalition because of the clear signs that Burnham wanted the PNC to have total control, Burnham started the rigging of elections to stay in power. To this day, this has been the greatest betrayal of Guyana by the PNC – to satisfy their monomaniacal insistence on having total power.
Imagine, the PNC has the temerity to accuse others of “corruption” nowadays!! What act of corruption could be greater than stealing the inalienable power of the people to choose their own government??
From this act of rigging, the cancer of corruption metastasized and spread into every institution in the state, and even in civil society. Lord Acton had once pointed out that “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”; but between 1968 and 1992, the PNC turned that aphorism on its head, as corruption BECAME power and absolute corruption became absolute power!! When the PPP took over the country in 1992, it was at the point of death, with stage 4 cancer corruption!! Terminal.
It took the PPP 23 years to bring back Guyana to a comparative state of health; but once the PNC slipped into power with the help of the AFC, they brought back the cancer of corruption. The acts of corruption the country has railed about – the warehouse scandal; the Durban Park scandal; the Pharma scandal; the fuel import scandal; the Bridge bid scandal: etc etc, are just mere SYMPTOMS.
More insidious is the militarisation of every department of Government – even the Public Hospital! – and the trampling of the Constitution like a doormat towards one end: For the PNC to retain power by any means necessary.
Judgement Day is coming on March 21st! All Guyanese have to stand up and be counted.
…our population?
All commentators finally agree that our present political toxicity stems from our ethnic multiplicity, which encourages ethnic entrepreneurs to mobilise along those lines – which goes beyond rational calculus and raise irrational fears. Rather than being an asset, our vaunted “land of six peoples” has become an albatross that has dragged us down, and even now threatens our very survival.
For instance, Granger and the PNC would’ve never tried the shenanigans with GECOM and elections that’s presently going on if it weren’t for their built-in ethnic support. While the PPP also depend on such support, to their credit, they never fiddled with our electoral system – and elections!! So imagine your Eyewitness’s consternation on learning that there are at least 5123 Spanish-speaking Venezuelans who’ve entered in the last year. God knows how many Portuguese-speaking Brazilians and now French-speaking Haitians can automatically stay for “6 months” to join the 300+ of their countrymen who entered before and can’t be found!!
It’s not the Tower of Babel that’s worrying; it’s the possible intensified internecine warfare.
…the ‘hood?
Did you notice the fist bump Granger greeted Jagdeo with at the aforementioned meeting?? Your Eyewitness thought it might’ve signalled a “welcome to the ‘hood, bro”!
But sadly, Granger’s refusal to make eye contact said otherwise!!
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