There is a winner; let’s deepen the governance of equality

Mar 03, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I could not have commented on the winner of the 2020 election because this submission has a deadline which would be early Monday evening. I sent this piece to Kaieteur long before the final count was completed.

This is Tuesday morning. By now certain people would know the election results even though it is not official and probably will not be official by the time my Wednesday column is out. But the two big parties plus organizations like the Carter Centre would have had a glimpse of how the trend went and would know the likely winner.

So at the time of publication of this edition of KN, some people know the 2020 election results. My prediction is a very close finish or a minority government for one of the large groups. It is done, there is a winner. It is time now to take Guyana into the future. We as Guyanese have to build on our oil economy. The winner is now in control of an economy where spending does not have to be allocated to certain sections of Guyana only. But more than economics, there must be sociology and politics.

When the APNU+AFC won the election, I was heartbroken over my failure at campaign promises. Two persons came up to me on the Stabroek Market Square and reminded me that I spoke at a campaign meeting at Bagotstown and promised them house-lots. I apologized and agreed to help them. I couldn’t see any official muchless the minister. Then months later I tried the Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan and told him I made an election promise to these two women. Bulkan has proven to be the most accommodating minister in the post 2015 government.

After the government changed in 2015, Geoff Da Silva, head of GOINVEST lost his job and thus returned to Canada. This was one person that the government should have kept. Not because you were associated with a party that lost power, it means you never had integrity. I thought Geoff Da Silva, then, Head of GOINVEST was one heck of a fair man who didn’t see Guyana as Black versus Indian or PNC versus PPP. I thought Da Silva would have worked with the 2015 dispensation with professional ethics and not party bias. The Minister of Business from the AFC that I campaigned and whose portfolio took in GO-INVEST could not see me. I asked Minister Cathy Hughes for an audience. She agreed to meet ten day after I originally contacted her. By that time, I wasn’t in the mood to meet her.

The new government has to work with professional Guyanese and stop shutting people out because of their race and so-called political association. I agree that seasoned activists that gave so much time, energy, sweat and blood must be given recognition. Even Obama rewarded people who contributed to his campaign. But the new government and new president, whether Ali or Granger has to reach out to all Guyanese and stop this nonsense of winner-take-all games.

It will not work. It has never worked. Oil money will not bring placid waves onto the sociological and cultural shores of Guyana if short-sighted leaders use oil money to fatten their friends and supporters. Every president from Burnham, including all of them right up to 2020 have not reached out but have practiced the politic of suspicion, bias and rejection in relation to the other half of Guyana.

I meet people all the time because of my presence as a social activist and newspaper columnists, and the refrain is repeated non-stop- “Freddie you think they will spend oil money responsibly?” I am not going to lie. My reply has always been that I don’t think we can trust the PPP and PNC to cultivate the culture of nationalistic fairness.

For all his visionary thinking, Burnham succumbed to the politics of party patronage. For all his international standing, Cheddi Jagan was an equal culprit perhaps more than Burnham. You see Burnham felt he was a phenomenon that can convert anyone opposed to him. That is why when I won UG top student award, heask me to meet with him.

Jagan on the other hand, was sadly an insecure man who would never have taken the chance to offer a substantial position to a critic. I will never forget my talk with President Cheddi Jagan when he refused to appoint Clive Thomas as Vice-Chancellor of UG. Jagan told me that Thomas must apply for the job. Guyana has a new government. It must reach out, it has to or Guyana will continue to die slowly.

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