LIFE UNDER THE PPP

Nov 06, 2016 Editorial, Features / Columnists

Guest Editorial

During the last fifteen years of PPP rule, the people did not have much say or input in the country’s affairs or its progress. Everything was controlled by the Jagdeo’s regime. Their freedom and rights to protest and speak out against wrongdoings were curtailed and the private media was threatened.
Extrajudicial killings took the lives of many, others were brutalized and some were placed before the courts on trump-up charges. The alarming murder rate, the high number of unsolved murders, armed robberies, police brutality and massive corrupt practices were symptoms that Guyana had become an endangered state.
The absence of the people’s influence on national policies under the PPP administration produced a pervasive social and cultural decay of national life, political stagnation and levels of lawlessness and violence that had placed the nation in serious danger.
Some, including the publisher and editor-in-chief of this publication, received the full force of attacks from the PPP to the extent that their lives were in danger. However, the “Heist of Guyana,”orchestrated by this publication awakened public consciousness and eventually saved the country. It emboldened many to speak out against a diseased PPP tribalism, corruption, theft, and gross incompetence of the PPP regime. The people’s demand of accountability, transparency and an end to corruption made them a force to be reckoned with in the run up to the last election.
Most people apparently wanted the best for their children and the country. But they were swamped by immorality, corruption and nepotism. Lawlessness and irresponsibility had engulfed the entire society, thus causing many to conclude that Guyana was a nation in name only. The citizens were saddened and alarmed by what the PPP had done to the country. It was a country with dysfunctional institutions, a retarded constitution, antiquated judiciary, and a partisan and corrupt government.
Most of the wealth generated from the economy benefitted those in the PPP. People were robbed, maimed and killed and their interests neglected or ignored. Life under the Jagdeo regime was overbearing.
The country’s economic flagships, sugar, rice and timber had showed signs of decay. Education and health care were on the verge of collapsing, the energy sector was a wreck, and unity, the very symbol of the nation, had been cast aside for partisan and race-bait politics.
The collapsing infrastructure and the rusting water pipelines beneath the ground were a symbol of a country rotting from beneath the surface, whilst those in authority continued to use state funds to fatten their bank accounts.Many became reputed millionaires by looting the Treasury.
There was a clear danger to the people and the country as a whole, but the PPP was mindlessness of the danger and as a result. It was ignored, either willfully or by accident. The country was in a shambolic state with its major institutions in disarray during the last fifteen years of the PPP rule. Parliament which was supposed to represent the people’s interests became a rubber stamp for the PPPites. It was no longer a place for negotiation, collaboration or debate between the government and the opposition.
Instead of an instrument of the people’s power, Parliament was a farce in that it presided over rituals and poor representation of the people’s interest. It was powerless and therefore, it could not have represented the people’s patrimony. It became a laughable imitation of what a Parliament should be.
It was a worthless period that lacked exuberance and trustworthy leaders to represent the people’s interest. Instead, they were dishonest and did not have the courage or will power to tell the people the truth about the state of the country.
Dishonest and deceit had overcome them.It was one of the darkest recorded period in Guyana’s history and that took a high toll on the people.

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