The inevitability of the prison of naked power

May 06, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Dr. Roger Luncheon (I don’t believe in schadenfreude so I am wishing him a quick recovery) told the press there is no need to call early elections because of the 2014 budget cuts. Luncheon then descended to the accustomed comical level of all PPP leaders by going further to state that negotiation rather than elections is the way forward.
Why is that comical? It is more than asinine. Why negotiate after the budget and not when it was being prepared? Luncheon just said something for something sake. No Guyanese can be that stupid to believe Luncheon and the PPP will negotiate with the combined opposition over the budget cuts. Commonsense has to guide every human being. And in this case commonsense is staring you in the face. If Luncheon couldn’t negotiate before the cuts why would he negotiate after?
He knows that a snap election is a gigantic risk that the PPP will not take. And for one reason –defeat will not only bring lost power but criminal investigation of the entire stock of governmental action since 1999.
There are a myriad of reasons why the PPP will not go the electorate before the November 2016. One factor is the prison of naked power.
Here is what I wrote in my last Friday column about the PPP’s chances in a forthcoming election; “Just days before the voting, the PPP leadership will put on a display of arrogance and vindictiveness.” I penned that view before I knew about a tape that has surfaced. In it, one of the upcoming leaders in the PPP, Nigel Dharamlall, gave an arrogant speech to a large group of Amerindians in which he was nauseatingly intimidating.
Why would any PPP leader want to speak to people like that? Dharamlall is not the exception. This is the prison of absolute power that has trapped all PPP leaders. What makes anyone in this country think Dharamlall will not do it again just days before a national election? What makes anyone thinks that, Jagdeo, Luncheon, Manickchand, Gail Teixeira, Charles Ramson and Ramotar will not do it just days before the poll?
Anyone familiar with the deportment of Clement Rohee will know that he is capable of making the most self-destructive political statement just before a national election. Anyone who knows Clement Rohee must know that Rohee cannot help himself.
This is what naked power has done to the PPP. Juan Edghill told the people of Guyana days before the 2011 election that if Jesus Christ came down to Guyana, he would vote for the PPP. Bharrat Jagdeo told an Essequibo PPP meeting that a powerful media person does not like him because he took away the man’s lover. If one is to enumerate these asininities, they would fill volumes.
The opposition was given an electoral gift by Dharamlall. Dharamlall could not help himself. He belongs to the younger generation of PPP leaders and he grew up in a culture (article forthcoming on the culture the former racist owner of the Los Angeles Clippers said he was born into; it is important to understand the power of culture) of his elders in the party where there are no limits, put on leaders’ misconduct. I wrote recently that Manickchand’s behaviour was predictable. I got a call on the phone in which the person said, “Freddie, you forgot to mention she was a product of Jagdeo.
What is ghoulish and that you only find in a Gothic novel is what the elders in the party will say to Dharamlall. Here is just a sample; “You right Nigel, sock it them.” “You right Nigel, those Amerindians need to be dressed down.” “You right Nigel, you put those Amerindians in their place; keep it up.” “I like it Nigel, you come on strong; keep it up.” I am one hundred percent confident that these praises will greet Dharamlall with the following advice; “Don’t worry with Stabroek News; you say it Nigel.”
I am a hundred percent confident that after her unbecoming conduct in Parliament, Priya Manickchand was given the same encouragement by the party elders. One can just imagine the horrible things that were said against Sharma as party stalwarts rushed to the defence of Manickchand.
There is the man at the top who told Mark Benschop that he believes in moral politics. But don’t get too curious. You have to understand what the man means by moral politics. In the cultural eyes of the PPP what Manickchand and Dharamlall did was right. Because Manickchand and Dharamlall belong to the PPP and the PPP is the embodiment of truth PPP. That is moral politics according to the Big Man.

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The inevitability of the prison of naked power

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