The coalition is recklessly playing with fire

Jun 20, 2020 Editorial

The coalition is recklessly playing with fire and it is going to get Guyana severely burnt, which means the ordinary citizen feeling most of the scorching heat. Its leader, care taker President David Granger, knows this more than anybody else, yet he continues to toy with the will of the electorate. The president and his group do so when both hasten, through proxies, for relief from the Appeals Court by allowing them to worm through any dubious constitutional keyhole available. As these efforts at stymieing what is on the threshold of a declaration by GECOM, the concentrated fire of the global community menaces Guyana.

We do not, as a nation, have either capacity or resilience, to withstand for any length of time the multiple ordeals in store and that could be unleashed reluctantly, but most assuredly and powerfully. The president and his inner circle should refrain from going down this dangerous road, not for one minute longer. We urge stepping back from the brink and let good sense prevail of what is best for Guyana. For what is threatened, should there be ignoring and dismissing of repeated warnings, are several heavy consequences, which would reduce the prospects of this society to ashes.

In an effort to emphasize the dire implications, we highlight a few of the sober warnings that came from former Barbadian Prime Minister and leader of the Commonwealth Elections Observer Team to Guyana, Owen Arthur, as they were initially articulated on Kaieteur Radio and relayed the next day in the KN edition of June 13. They are stark and worrying, which should make all citizens alarmed.

First, some form of expulsion hangs over the head of Guyana, should the caretaker coalition administration continue to thwart the will of the people to the bitter end and beyond. In practical terms on the ground, this means that Guyanese could be grounded, as in effectively banned from travelling to and from other CARICOM member countries under the auspices of the CSME umbrella. The flow of investments to here and opportunity for our citizens elsewhere would dry up in a jiffy. No leader and no government that says that both are about the interests and welfare of its people would want to attract what would be the equivalent of the pressure of sanctions from regional brothers of historic standing. Any leader and any government would think twice and then many times that number, when armed with the knowledge (and blunt reminder) that this country is the “principle (sic) beneficiary of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME)” We are such a beneficiary and in a major way. This benefit should not be squandered over actions relative to the official delivery of a declaration by the chair of GECOM. The many who look on skeptically and critically are not political contestants.

Second, and no less anxiety provoking, Mr. Arthur proceeded into the minefield that is our border controversy with neighbouring Venezuela. What he placed on the table before all Guyanese was ominous. Guyana has benefited again, in this instance, “from the fact that every head of government issued a statement” and through that statement recorded “strong support and reinforcement of support for Guyana’s territorial and sovereignty in the face of a claim by Venezuela for two thirds of your land” (also KN June 13). No sane leader and no patriotic group of wise advisers should want to risk the friendlessness and distancing that are integral components of a state deemed a pariah. The specter of a rogue nation with rogue leaders running amok would damage Guyana irreparably. It is why we go to this length yet again in asking the president to pay heed.

We do not think that, at his core, President Granger is such a man, or that kind of leader. Thus, we continue to appeal to him, through disappointment, through frustrating angers. We speak nothing of possible cessation of much-needed technical assistance from the Commonwealth or endangering our potentially prosperous future. We simply speak to doing what is right and required now for the upward movement of Guyana from the issues of Elections 2020 that have plagued and paralyzed into a deathlike state. Mr. President, please listen and please act wisely.

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