Putinesque villains and Berlusconi-style clowns

Feb 04, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I took that description from the farewell editorial of the outgoing editor of The Economist, the British weekly newspaper. He was reflecting on his years as editor and the politicians he had to put on the front page, like those who are Putinesque villains and Berlusconi- style clowns.
I borrowed the phrase because it was relevant to my world as a Guyanese columnist. People come up to you all the time with the saddest of stories, and ninety-nine percent of those complaints are connected to the cruel behaviour of Putinesque political mandarins and circus clowns who occupy the seat of government.
I get a daily dose of; “Mr. Kissoon yuh gat to reply to dem jokers and the stupidy things deh seh.” It never stops. It goes on and on. The average man and woman in the street think that the PPP leaders are clowns that make them laugh all the time. They find the leaders of the PPP hilarious. People come up to me all the time, broad smiles on their faces, and would say; “Freddie duh maan Rohee is a joker, you hear wuh he seh,” “Freddie, maan I had to really laugh at wuh duh maan Hydar Ally write de other day.”
So I would go and check these things and really, this Government consists of Putinesque villains and Berlusconi-type clowns. I do not read what the PPP mandarin Hydar Ally writes. The average citizen finds him funny with his unbelievable description of the PPP being one of the greatest groups of rulers in the world.
People laugh at Clement Rohee every day in this country, and if Donald Ramotar is serious about being reelected, he has to immediately issue an edict against Rohee to stop those weekly press conferences. They are a weekly embarrassment to the nationality of a people named Guyanese. One look at Rohee’s Berlusconi-type replies to the reporters’ questions and you are bound to dismiss the PPP. No political party in government should allow itself to be so laughed at by a nation.
There is hardly a moment at those press conferences when you can take Rohee seriously. Every reply brings out laughter in the viewer. I don’t know where to begin to offer examples of Rohee’s hilarity. Charles Ramson is out of this world. As Commissioner of Information, Mr. Ramson has been accused by the Transparency Institute of Guyana of refusing correspondence, if the face of the envelope does not carry the proper wording of the way he should be addressed.
Two Ministers were acting as President and Prime Minister respectively, and the sirens of their escort cars were blazing loudly, even on old dirt roads in the countryside of Mahaicony. The satirical column in this newspaper, “Dem Boys Seh” exposed this joke for the entire Guyanese population in and out of the country to read.
I could understand the feeling of the outgoing editor of The Economist. He runs a newspaper and he has no choice – he has to feature Putinesque villains and Berlusconi-style clowns on his front page.
Do I have a choice as a commentator? Why should I write about Neil Kumar, the Director of Sport, informing the public through a press conference that the Colgrain Swimming Pool cannot be opened up to the general public because people have to understand that they have to bathe first before they use the pool. I had better things to write on that day, but even my colleagues at Kaieteur News were laughing and insisted that I do a column on Kumar’s words.
So I guess the choice isn’t there. You have to write about politicians that are big, bad and powerful, and their facetious acolytes. And it goes on. There is a motion to upturn the constitutional term limits for the presidency. Political madness never ends in Guyana and it occupies the front page.
If a judge can strike out parts of a constitution then obviously, elected politicians who vote in a Parliament are not the ultimate framers of a constitution. I don’t know where this motion will go in the court, but I know commonsense can guide any human being in this particular situation.
This motion says that the electorate is denied their democratic right to elect a person they want. I would think that the section of the constitution that gives the President the authority to prorogue the parliament without a vote is also a denial of the right of the electorate. And isn’t the electorate denied their right by the constitution, in that the constitution prevents the electorate from voting a coalition government into power?

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