The opposition parties should not allow the UNDP to get away with this nonsense

May 14, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

It is my hope that the opposition wins the next general election. But the opposition contestants will have only themselves to blame if they lose. None of our three parliamentary parties have retained the admiration, respect and love of the Guyanese people that they had after the 2006 elections. And one reason can be cited. The feeling among Guyanese is that the opposition parties are not inclined to fight for the rights of the population in a way that drives hope and optimism into the heart of the citizenry.
One of the opposition organizations has delineated the lines of activities without any profound reflection as to what types of groundings constitute PR functions and what forms of action galvanize people to embrace an opposition movement.
The Alliance For Change has a terminology of street protest that hardly finds acceptance among the Guyanese people. Filled with the bitter experience of what the PNC’s strategy of “mo fyaah/slo fyaah” resulted in, the AFC concluded that street protest is a cul-de-sac that can only bring political gain to the PPP, whose trump card is always race-baiting. The terrible hole in the AFC’s argument is that it has equated “mo fyaah/slo fyaah” with urban demonstration. The two are not the same.
It is outside the scope of today’s article to once more elaborate on the nature of “mo fyaah/slo fyaah” and why it failed (it didn’t fail). I have done several pieces on it. An expectation of opposition parties is that they will seek confrontation with a devilish government on many fronts, some mild some torrid. The AFC has not sought confrontation on any front.
We come now to a huge misinterpretation of the AFC. Giving out sewing machines to mothers, kites to children, and seedlings to farmers are part of the opposition ensemble. But it is not a strategy in itself. Such PR work has to be backed up by radical overtones for it to be effective. If the AFC does not go out onto the streets in front of GPL, NIS, GuySuCo and GRA, Guyanese will not perceive it as a party they can pin their hopes on.
A graphic example of opposition incompetence is their laziness, which borders on the morbid, and I will come to the egregious behaviour of the UNDP in Guyana in a short while.
The PNC and AFC have some high-powered lawyers. A fundamental (it should be commonsensical) strategy has to be to wear down the elected dictatorship in legal tangles since the law will be on the side of the opposition. To date, the PNC has filed one court case against the Government and that involves the Integrity Commission. The AFC has none. It went to court twice, but for wrongs done to it rather than governmental sins against the population.
An examination of the elected dictatorship of Mr. Jagdeo and the PPP would reveal over two dozen cases of violations that should be tested in court. A few easily come to mind – the Arif Bulkan application to become DPP; the presidential refusal to offer the Speaker of the House explanations for the rejection of his assent to Bills; the dismissal of CANU officers for failing a lie detector test; the denial of confirmation of dozens of high-level public servants; imposition of the colour yellow on taxis
Here is the one that I am livid about. The Ethnic Relations Commission is illegal (my opinion after doing some legal research). Why aren’t the AFC and PNC asking for an injunction to restrain the ERC from functioning? The UNDP has granted a whopping sum to the ERC to carry out an assessment of its work. The ERC in turn has hired UNDP consultant Lawrence Latchmansingh to assess the effectiveness of the ERC’s outreach programmes. What I am unclear about is whether the ERC hired Latchmansingh.
The ERC document I have said it did. But Mr. Latchmansingh is a UNDP consultant. Did the UNDP give the money and request that Latchmansingh be facilitated?
I have nothing against Mr. Latchmansingh but why couldn’t the consultancy be advertised. There are at least three UG lecturers with Master’s degrees in Conflict Resolution The UNDP has to know that controversy swirls around the legality of the ERC and should not have given the money. That money is not the UNDP’s to spend how its wants to. It is money from the international community which funds the UN. The opposition can at least ask the UNDP on Brickdam for an explanation.

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The opposition parties should not allow the UNDP to get away with this nonsense

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