THE MAN WHO SAVED GUYANA

Jan 19, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Freddie Kissoon’s article of last Saturday was atypical.  I do not resent him for his views; I simply emphatise with him.
Glenn Lall, the publisher of this newspaper, did not see it that way. He was livid. He rained fire and brimstone on the editors of this newspaper for publishing this unfortunate and misguided article. He told them that they were sleeping on the job. I pleaded with him that the real issue lay with the author. Glenn disagreed.  He castigated the editors for being slack with their duties.
Perhaps he knows that Kissoon is irredeemable. He should, however, consider that the real victim of this column was not its subject, but its author.
Kissoon has, for some time, been in a state of decline. He is now a victim of his own devices, and has begun to actually believe what he is writing.
Having bored us for years about the evils of the University of Guyana, he has been unceasing about what he sees an as elected dictatorship. In his mind he has fashioned a monster, which has now turned on him and is gnawing away at his rational faculties, fed not to brutish beasts but to the monster within it.
His latest subject was undeserving of Kissoon’s vitriol. Doodnauth Singh is an outstanding Guyanese, a real life champion who will in time be regarded as one of the modern-day heroes of this country.
Ironically, it is for two of his most heroic acts that he is condemned by Kissoon. Perhaps it was because these two acts were controversial that they were allowed to become excuses for Kissoon’s venomous pen. Controversy and greatness are, however, not mutually exclusive.
The first act was the controversial swearing-in of Mrs. Janet Jagan in a private ceremony at the headquarters of the Guyana Elections Commission, after the highly controversial 1997 Elections. That act may have been controversial, but it saved Guyana; for had it not been done, this country would have been torn apart.
I have written before about the machinations that were afoot by power-hungry politicians to derail those elections.
We all know about the mischief with the statement of polls being placed in the ballot boxes and forwarded to “the Olympics”, rather than being sent to their designated positions. I did not consider all the mistakes as incompetence. They were, in the main, part of a devious scheme to derail the announcement of the results, so as to create conditions of political and constitutional autarky.
Anarchy broke out after the secret swearing-in. The hunger for power was so great that those behind the anarchy were willing to imperil the State. Imagine what would have happened to Guyana had there been no swearing-in. If the madness of December 1997 was not tragic enough, contemplate our fate had the results not been announced and a President not been sworn-in. Doodnauth Singh saved Guyana.
The CARICOM-commissioned audit vindicated the then Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission. It established that the declared results matched the count of the ballot boxes which the audit team went through box by box. It proved that the declared results were accurate and that the PPP had indeed won the elections.
That election was subsequently vitiated, not on the basis of irregularities, but on a technicality. The elections were vitiated not because of the flaws in the process, but because the use of the voter identification card was deemed to be illegal.
The second act for which Singh has been condemned by Kissoon was his decision to become the country’s Attorney-General. I agree that it set a bad precedent for a Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission to be appointed as a minister within the Government. It is not an admirable precedent.
But there is an aspect that should be considered, and which a rational mind can relate to.  Mr. Doodnauth Singh chose to serve his country, and not the PPP. His appointment was as a technocrat. I am sure he accepted the appointment because of what he saw as an obligation to serve Guyana, not because of status, or money, or fame. He does not need these things.
He has maintained his standing as a technocrat, and he cannot be said to be a supporter of the ruling party. The language of his presentation within the Parliament and within the National Assembly is one as the principal legal advisor to Government, and not as a political figure.
The fact that he is part of the Cabinet should not be held against him any more than the fact that Kissoon’s employment at the University of Guyana should be used to indict him of being part of the decline of that institution.
It was better to have Singh. Imagine what would have been the situation had Singh not been the Attorney-General. Who knows what we would have gotten? Imagine what would have been the fate of the University of Guyana had Kissoon not been present to rail against the injustices there.
Service of country must never be confused with service of party, or a defense of poor governance. It is a mistake that columnists make to assume that any association at all with the present ruling administration is perverse. There are many good persons who hold power today, and who do not agree with what is taking place. They are not all bad people.

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