The horror is becoming colossal

Mar 10, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

It is not a joke. It is not something that is funny to be laughed at. We are talking about the politics of nihilism. It goes on daily. It will not stop. It is difficult to stop it but it needs to be confronted rather than ignored. It is the quotidian madness from the leadership of the People’s Progressive Party. We read during the Budget debate that former President, Bharrat Jagdeo lamented that public service pay should have gone up by fifty percent.
One’s initial reaction was to laugh. The civil service and the wider public sector were scorned upon by the PPP regime and it is an unflattering reflection on Cheddi Jagan that he was not above such politics. Jagan, the man himself never trusted the civil service. Now the PPP wants Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan, to be fired for the prison riots.
Someone coming from another planet would not know that the same PPP official, Clement Rohee, who wants Ramjattan dismissed, was the Minister who held the prison portfolio for over a decade. The new Minister is there just eight months now. This is a horror story that is just swelling with each passing day.
What does one say to Jagdeo whose twelve-year-old presidency never saw ten percent increase for public sector workers much less twenty-five? And Jagdeo wants a fifty percent hike for them. This is the politics of insane hypocrisy. And it will not stop. Mr. Jagdeo went to Berbice last Sunday and addressed PPP supporters on the death anniversary of Cheddi Jagan.
Without Guysuco trucks to ferry PPP supporters and sugar workers from Regions Three and Four, and money from state coffers for refreshments, and pay for entertainment the attendance was the smallest since Dr. Jagan died in 1997. But what was philosophically instructive about the tragedy of power, is that for that day, Sunday March 6, and the following day there were no gigantic photographs of Bharrat Jagdeo, Sam Hinds, Clement Rohee, Donald Ramotar, Gail Teixeira, with huge garlands around their necks jutting out of the front page of the Chronicle.
There was no coverage on NCN during the lunch hour so PPP supporters can eat while looking at the live stream of the PPP leaders on parade. That era is dead and gone. And for all we know, 2016 may have been the last occasion some of these jaded, faded mandarins would have walked up the podium of Babu John to eulogize Cheddi Jagan.
Power is gone but Mr. Jagdeo lied to his listeners about why power is gone. He lamented the rigging of the 2015 elections. They say Guyana is full of young people, Berbice being no exception. Well, maybe a few dozen young Berbicians should be brave and fierce in their independent mind and ask Jagdeo to describe why the 2015 election was chosen to be rigged and not the ones long before so Jagdeo’s presidency could have been short-lived
It was Donald Ramotar who, days after the results of the 2011 elections, declared that there was cheating and PPP supporters in Region Four were prevented from voting. They say in journalism, there are certain derogatory words that are non-starters. You do not refer to people as asinine. But a politician had to be the greatest fool to rig an election yet lose the presidency and the government in 2011. Why then did he rig it?
Certainly not for power because the opposition couldn’t even stop the Government from spending money from the Budget that the Opposition cut in Parliament. A politician had to be the greatest fool to rig the election in 2015 and give himself a mere 4000 more votes than his opponent. If the 2011 and 2015 elections were fraudulent then the rigger is the most incompetent person in the world since civilization began
One cannot help but asking Berbicians if it is so low an opinion that the PPP have of them that Mr. Jagdeo could throw such nonsense at them and ask them to believe it. Berbicians should use the attendance last Sunday to remind them of how deceiving the PPP has been to them in that every year, except 2016, the crowds were in the thousands. What happened to those numbers this year?
Because year after year they were fooled into thinking that the PPP had this mammoth support when in reality people were bussed in from all parts of Guyana. Government funds were not available this year so the thousands of garlands, the thousands of faces and the thousands of vehicles had vanished. Power went away and ostentation, pomp and spendour went with it.

Latest News

The horror is becoming colossal

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| February, 14th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Jagdeo urges Associations to take a business approach to sports

The Battle for Barbados: One Guyana Racing Stable...

Tyrrell breaks 12-year-old school record to claim...

Raja Pooran inspires Everest Masters to victory...

BCB saddened at the passing of the late Lennox...

Berbice Cricket Board names 15-man squad to...

Features/Columnists

We need a DOGE

Why the U.S. Should Strengthen Trade Ties with the Caribbean

Financial institutions grabbing Guyana’s goodies

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]

The horror is becoming colossal

Share this:

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| February, 14th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]