…Charrandas
There’s the old saying “give a dog a bad name and then hang him”. It acknowledges that when you stain someone’s character, it then becomes easier to take him down for the bigger fall. We were just informed by the Top Cop that the Government of Guyana’s hiring an “international investigator” to dig into the PNC and AFC’s insistence that Charrandas was bribed to vote with the Opposition PPP on their No-Confidence Motion (NCM).
A week following the PNC’s slap-down of Moses Nagamootoo’s acceptance in Parliament that the Government had lost the NCM and would have to resign forthwith, Aubrey Norton put on his (thug) game face and announced with absolute certainty that Charrandas was bribed. Jagdeo, Norton insisted, “colluded with forces in Trinidad and mobilised resources to bribe a sitting Member of Parliament in pursuance of his hunger for wealth and power”!! He even claimed that they had evidence of Jagdeo meeting the briber in a “hotel room”.
Nagamootoo also did a volte face on his earlier acceptance and announced unctuously: “If a vote in the National Assembly was procured by unlawful means to overthrow a constitutionally-elected government that will have serious implications and the speaker will have to address that issue”. In a blaring headline that dubbed Charrandas “Judas”, the Chronic quoted Ramjattan as insisting there was “absolutely a connection with bribery”. He ‘asserted’ the Police – who fell under his jurisdiction – were ‘closing in’ on Charrandas!!
He said a “big sum of money” was involved and it was being “spirited” out of the country. This money was supposed to be in gold, for which Ramjattan produced some screenshots of Charrandas inquiring about purchasing same. Five months later, the Police have been unable to produce a shred of evidence of the “bribery” which all the political big-wigs in the PNC and AFC maintained they possessed. But not one of them withdrew their accusation and now comes the “international investigation”.
The dog had been given a bad name and the PNC and AFC are looking to hang Charrandas. Why? As Nagamootoo had said early, the investigation should’ve been launched by the speaker but he’s never even raised the issue. The real reason for resurrecting the issue is that with the elections looming, folks will begin to ask why didn’t other MPs in the Government – especially Nagamootoo and Ramjattan – protest the unilateral action of the Granger government to shut down 4 sugar estates and throwing 7000 workers into the streets.
This question will certainly loom large in the minds of the constituency which the AFC hopes will rescue them from oblivion!! Charrandas’ credibility is a standing indictment of Ramjattan and Nagamootoo
It’s they and the AFC who’ll hang!!
…the PNC/AFC’s tango
Looks like Guyana’s having its own version of “Last tango in Paris”. The director Bernardo Bertolucci has passed on, so it looks like this one’s being produced by the PNC with the working title, “Last Tango in GT”. It stars David Granger as the protagonist, having that anonymous but steamy relationship with Nagamootoo for years. Remember that steamy courtship scene in Whim, when they held hands and swayed (awkwardly) in unison on that stage??
Nagamootoo, however, walks because he wants to move on and enjoy his pension. In the Guyanese version, it’s not Nagamootoo Granger encounters and wants to restart the relationship, but Nagamootoo’s bete noir, Ramjattan. But by now, as in Bertolucci’s version, Ramjattan now knows all about Granger and the emasculatory tricks he played on Nagamootoo.
Like those new “choose your own adventures” innovation pioneered in “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch”, there are two endings with “Last Tango in GT”. The first has Ramjattan rejecting Granger’s offer and figuratively “shooting” him. No coalition.
The other has him bending over!! You choose!!
…the GuySuCo fire sales
We’re being informed piecemeal about NICIL – the SPU? – hiving off parts of the shuttered sugar estates and doling them out.
Whatever happened to the folks who were beating down the doors to acquire them in toto??
