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Sorry seems to be the hardest word

Dec 02, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

That’s the title of one of Elton John’s greatest hits. It is one of my favourite John songs.   There are two lines that go like this;
“What do I say when it’s all over.
And sorry seems to be the hardest word.”
It’s all over for the PPP, but they march on under the banner of the infamous triumvirate – Jagdeo, Teixeira and Rohee. Ramotar fires off salvoes from his own corner where he seems to be permanently cocooned. Luncheon takes to the airwaves to have his say over a radio station owned by the PPP. Others seek refuge in the letter pages of the Kaieteur News and Stabroek News.
Now here is a funny little story about disrespect inside the PPP. A month ago, Jagdeo advocated a boycott of the Kaieteur News. But Jagdeo’s own underlings ignore him.
Pick up the KN on any day and you will find a letter from a PPP leader. The list is long – Ramotar, Nandlall, Manickchand, Hydar Ally, Harry Gill, Ramson Junior among others. Recently Manickchand published an attack on the Ministry of Education.
Ramotar sent off to KN his response to Tony Vieira. And the list goes on. Is there a creeping disrespect for Jagdeo inside the Champion’s own party? How could you urge Guyanese to stay away from buying the Kaieteur News, but your own party leadership seeks the ventilation of their views in that very newspaper?
But on a more substantial issue – has any PPP leader looked back since 1992 and admitted after the loss of power in May 2015 that he/she was truly sorry for a terrible decision?
The media scene is dominated by PPP press conferences. There is a PPP press conference each week, and in between there are the occasional one or two. In each press meeting, the policies of APNU-AFC are derogated.
Recently, Jagdeo spoke of corruption behind the Fedders Lloyd contract. Rohee wants an ethnic breakdown of GECOM employees; Teixeira complains that computers were removed from the former Office of the Opposition which she says belong to the new Leader of the Opposition. A commentator cannot keep up with the PPP tirade against the six-month-old government
So are we to expect an apology soon from one of these Freedom House press briefings on some act or error or wrong turn or wrong policy of the PPP since 1992? Was it right to share out a dozen radio licences just before Jagdeo demitted office in 2011 and not even one went to an independent entity?
Even if the PPP Government had made up its mind against Kaieteur News’ application, what about the applications from the Stabroek News and Enrico Woolford? Now that it is in opposition and it sees a million things wrong with the governance style and policies of the new regime, does the PPP recognize any of its mistakes? Not even one?
Can the people who hold those weekly press conferences at Freedom House tell the nation if it was right for Linden to have transmission from one station only – NCN? In all the years the PPP was in power, the people of Linden never saw the programmes of channel 9 and those informative interviews with inspirational Guyanese.  The people of Linden never got to see “Mitta” Sharma on CNS channel 6.
Yet the Freedom House brigade can hold weekly press briefings to tell this nation all that is going wrong with the APNU-AFC Government and not one reflection of regrets from any section of the PPP’s hierarchy.
Will the PPP apologize for putting five PPP Parliamentarians on the Council of the University? Would the PPP accept it as normal for the current UG Council to have five APNU-AFC Parliamentarians? Can’t someone in the PPP top bracket say to the Guyanese people that looking back at what we did at UG, there were mistakes? Why is sorry such a hard word to say? Will we hear it in the coming year?  I doubt it. Not from the PPP.
There are two attitudes that are permanent encrustations on the walls of the collective mind of the PPP. One is that they will never say sorry. Once that is done, the royal, messianic, fortress will come tumbling down.
For every PPP leader, the party has done the right thing, but the mischievous critics blame them wrongfully. Every PPP leader is afraid to admit to mistakes, because in doing so it exposes them as ordinary people. The second sin is that the PPP will never allow one person, one vote, in its membership to elect its leader. That is not in the nature of the PPP. That will never happen.

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