The arrogance and autocracy of David Granger

Nov 03, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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David Granger, if he retains the presidency in 2020, is very much unlikely to run again. If he uses up his entire second term, he would have completed ten years of the presidency. He is nearing five years. That balance sheet is nowhere near impressive.

There isn’t one phenomenal achievement of President Granger. In a country that has been riveted by violent crises, political turmoil, social pessimism and ethnic poison in its entire pre- and post-Independence life, transformational, innovative, visionary leadership is something every citizen from every class stratification, race, gender, and age dream for Guyana to have.
Since Jagan and Burnham messed up the unity slate in the 1950s, Guyana has been going nowhere. We have produced eight executive presidents and none has won the love and admiration of the entire nation. None has crossed over the lines that demarcate ethnic and political rivalries. None has achieved the embrace of even sixty percent of the population much less a handsome majority.
Of the eight presidents, the history textbooks will devote endless pages to only four of them – Burnham, Hoyte, Jagan, Jagdeo. They stood very tall, even if not democratic. They were all controversial but were completely self-confident, and all four stamped their own brand of vision on their respective governments.
Near to complete five years, David Granger is as ordinary, in the essence of governance and in the substance of leadership qualities, as presidents Janet Jagan, Sam Hinds and Donald Ramotar. Of the four, Granger is far less a people’s president and far less an endearing charmer. He is stiff and un-West Indian.
On reading what he told his interviewer, Gordon Moseley, Granger opened up himself to formidable accusations of arrogance, autocracy and hypocrisy. What follows are descriptions of his actions the past four and a half years, without putting any of the actions under the specific heading of autocracy, hypocrisy and arrogance.
This president came to power by a mere point 3 percent majority, yet never governed with the explicit attitude of reaching out to the opposition and other stakeholders. Yet this president had the temerity to tell his interviewer that his ministers must be intelligent and have integrity. The analysts can ask questions about those values in Granger himself.
This is a president that selected a man to head an industry that all Guyanese see as providing a future, yet the selectee has no training and qualification in the study of oil and gas. This is a president that will go down in the history books as summoning all the diplomatic envoys to Guyana to inform them that the CCJ has ruled that he, as president, could provide a list of six names, submit it to himself, and select one for the GECOM chair. Nothing in any of the rulings of the CCJ provided Granger with that authority.
This is a president that has refused to use castigating words on a concatenation of egregious behavioural manifestations of several ministers. The infamous list includes one of them filming a vulgar video in the sacred halls of parliament. One of the ministers is his deputy in the PNC. She said her policy is not to waste time with her enemies. She exclaimed that her attitude is to give jobs to her party people only.
This is a president that accepts his choices as ministers the past four and a half years, and never saw it as plausible to shuffle any one of them out of the Cabinet. This is a president that has a one-seat parliamentary majority and became president with a majority of point three percent over his competitor yet, under his presidency, the state-owned newspaper is run as the possession of the ruling clique.
In fact, this columnist’s opinion is that Mr. Granger had a hand in the removal of two iconic Guyanese as columnists with the Chronicle – Lincoln Lewis and Dr. David Hinds. I have my disagreements with Mr. Lewis, but I will not question his contributions to trade union struggle and political activism.
This columnist’s opinion is that Mr. Granger should apologize to both men; failure to do so calls into question, his integrity. This is a president that suggests state advertisements to the media be based on fair reporting. Should Guyanese trust Granger’s definition of fairness?
This is a president that has a strange and unusual record among any governmental head anywhere in the world today. In four and a half years of rule, he has called only three press conferences. Any analyst anywhere in the world is bound to ask if this shows leadership. The foregoing is just a short list of Granger’s failures.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

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