Encounter with Carol Sooba

Mar 01, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Last Saturday, at the road market outside Bourda Market, Carol Sooba came out of her taxi to have a quick word with me. This is what she said, “You see what I was saying about them all the time? Now you see. Don’t worry; I know everything., I know all their secrets.”
I said, “Go and confront them, confront Royston King when the Local Government Commission starts to work. She responded “They (meaning the government) don’t want the Local Government Commission.”
This was me and Carol Sooba talking. This was me showing support for Carol Sooba. This was the lady that I did four (yes) columns disagreeing with the decision of the acting Chief Justice, Ian Chang, (now retired, leaving Chief Mike to fend for himself) that she was wrongly appointed by the Minister of Local Government but she can still occupy the office. I was against Carol Sooba as Town Clerk because I believe she was a PPP servant at City Hall acting in the political interest of the then PPP Government.
Within the blink of an eye, life changes in opposite direction from where you stand. Because of the performance, brutal anti-working class edicts, parking meter insanity, and the oligarchic oppression of the APNU+AFC City Council, I would support Carol Sooba to replace Royston King as Town Clerk. That is how fast politics moves in this country.
When I think of my change of position with regards to Ms. Sooba, I know life is so unpredictable and we will never know the depths of inhumanity power can push people towards. Royston King is someone I think poses a threat to Guyana’s democracy. I would never have written these words about King prior to May 2015 when the PPP was in government.
I saw King replace Sooba and I saw King outdo Sooba in terms of heartless mistreatment of poor people. When I think of my attitude to Carol Sooba in 2017, I can fully understand why the Oxford and Cambridge professors supported Stalin against Hitler. They had no choice; they chose the lesser of the two evils even though Stalin was deeply evil and were killing his people. What choice do we have – there is a City Council administrator that has shown more cruelty to vendors than Sooba ever did.
The difference between Sooba and King (apart from qualifications; Sooba went to UG law school, one of the job requirements for the Town Clerk’ position is training in law) is that Sooba was restrained in her harshness as Town Clerk because the opposition to her was relentless, not only from the opposition parties, the City Councilors, civil society but from many sections of the Guyanese society.
With King, he feels he has the support of an elected Council that voted in the Mayor, the person he works closely and the party in power, so he believes he has a legal mandate to act. Whereas Sooba had to deal with a rambunctious Council, King only has to contend with about four councilors who are opposed to his highhandedness.
As Sooba went back into her yellow-painted taxi, I stared for about 20 seconds at the vehicle as it drove away. I was thinking that I just said a few words of encouragement to someone I had picketed against when she was Town Clerk. I continued my shopping but the thoughts of power were in my mind. The abuse of power by a newly elected City Council must mentally devastate not only Georgetowners but also Guyanese in general as we see daily how City Hall behaves.
The promise of democracy that local government elections held out for us has become a faded rose that likes beneath our feet as we hold our placards and denounce the parking meter scandal. Where is local democracy in Guyana? Where are the voices of the leaders who, when in opposition, perambulated the inhabited square miles of Guyana decrying the absence of local government election? Well it came, democracy didn’t come with it.
Carol Sooba told me as she went back into her taxi that the APNU+AFC does not want the Local Government Commission (LGC). You see once the LGC comes into being then the Mayor and her Town Clerk cannot run to their Government for protection. They have to conform to the decisions of the LGC. President Granger has waxed lyrical about the democracy that the local elections would bring. But his government looks like it is willing to stifle that very democracy by the still to be born LGC.
Power does strange things to people some of which is the destruction of their credibility and popularity. Bulkan and Granger are destroying theirs.

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