The silly season is here

Mar 08, 2011 Editorial

This the year when elections are due; the period leading up to these elections is called the silly season. It is the period when we see and hear all manner of things, some so absurd that people are left with nothing but confusing thoughts and ideas. It is also the period when people make use of the dregs of the society to foment unrest.
Already we are seeing the latter. We have seen the demonstrations outside the headquarters of the Alliance for Change by people who are uncertain why they are protesting but they operate under the leadership of a spokesman who contends that they are independent of any political party.
This is a most unusual development since never in the history of the country had we seen independent people banding to picket any political party. We have seen workers picketing their place of employment; we have seen people demonstrating against rising prices. Their target has not been a political party but a series of government offices and departments; we have seen mass protests that were simply people marching through the streets under a particular political group or some social organisation.
So we have this so called independent group whose actions are reminiscent of the people who banded themselves to protest Mrs Janet Jagan’s accession to the presidency of Guyana. Despite the fact that Mrs Jagan had been living in Guyana longer than some of them had been alive and despite the fact that the constitution is silent on the issue of nationality when it comes to the accession to the presidency, these people made this an issue.
In the past, there have been other actions during the silly season. We have seen people attacked because they happened to be of a certain racial group. Then there have been the character assassinations. We have heard so many things about political leaders that we are left to question our own sanity. Some of these allegations are not worth reporting while others are simply scandalous.
This year, the situation seems to be heading in the general direction. There are already the politicians talking from the various platforms and directing their energies to things past rather than on planned programmes. And the character assassination has not been left out.
The incumbent is always at an advantage since he would have the various development issues to his credit. For example, in recent times there have been some interesting developments, not least among them the construction of the Berbice River Bridge that links the eastern part of the country to the rest of coastal Guyana.
Economically, Guyana has also done remarkably well. It has more money than at any time in its recent history and it is undertaking programmes, some questionable, but programmes never the less. But for all its successes there seems to be a determination to carp on the past.
Of course, we see an attempt to distort history to suit political purposes. That is often the nature of the game. It is for historians to set the records straight. But it is the silly season so anything goes.
Already the various presidential candidates have become prime targets and in any political campaign they are fair game. It is for the media to research the past of these people and help to present them to the electorate for what they are. But such actions only seem to strengthen the resolve of the voter who may support the candidate. People do not change their views lightly. That is why political campaigns should be more on issues because people do hold strong views on national issues.
But in Guyana the silly season determines otherwise. Such is the case each time elections come around. With foreign help, reporters fashioned a code of conduct. To their credit, the reporters stuck to the code and there was no elections violence.
There is a mad scramble to fashion or at least to resurrect the code of conduct this time around. The onlookers believe that something is just not right. They must have gauged the mood of the people and they must be seeing the signs. The politicians, however, are the ones raising the temperature. There must be a code of conduct for them.

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