Undue applause, but when the cheering is over

Jul 23, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

As much as there is disagreement with positions taken, and there is loathing the ways things were gone about, some recognition is due for supporters for their party’s cause, even ones distinctively defeated. Today, I write not about personal ambitions or any such thing, I simply look straight ahead.
Whenever the celebrations over the triumph of democracy are over, and real governance begins, I would like to hear and read from them about the rising from the ashes of the past five months, in fact, of the last 19 months. There is so much that I am expecting from the guardians and champions of democracy, all of them who rallied against those (like me) who wrote that we have to live on our own and that we must find a way likewise. In the event that we manage to do so – leaders and parties, and supporters and citizens – the scrutiny will be on what they really stood for, where they stand at that time in the future. All the Singhs and Lalls and Smiths and Joneses will be watched to see what they are really about then, what it was that all the effort was about, when the dust settles.
In fairness, they are entitled to accentuate the positives. But by the same token, the expectation and standard is to see repeated demonstrations of honesty and authenticity in holding the feet of their successful electoral people to the fire of the highest heat. After some 23 years in power and with full knowledge of the peculiar arts of Guyanese governance norms, ignorance cannot be feigned, the learning curve is short, if at all. I will acknowledge that there are promises for much remedial work to be done with regards to suspect financial shenanigans since elections day. But aside from those disturbing developments, I would like to appreciate all those claiming at the honourable and principled in the media channels to take to those same channels and speak out with the same zeal and energy (frank truths, too) when their leaders and the surrounding cast do wrong.
Editor, I cannot recall any of the Opposition people calling it out during its lengthy tenure. I recall only a few (very few) who did so in the time of the coalition. I speak for myself only, with a handful of examples only. The early and inexcusable parliamentary pay raise within a short span following the May 2015 elections; the sharp questioning of a few coalition minister re their efforts and, sometimes, their, competency; and the award before elections of lands and contracts, where procurement and those supposedly purifying procedures did not live up to expectations. As more examples, what was the disposition of a tape and the whistleblower worker that fingered a senior Central Tender Board official; and then my repeated cautions to the head of state himself that he had surrounded himself with too many trusted people, who had mostly betrayed him. Because when they did so, it was the same up the creek without a paddle for the larger population.
There is more, but those quick reminders ought to be enough for this conversation. My hope is that those who did well in the campaigning and electioneering, in the propagandizing and overall raising of roofs and shining of lights will not suddenly convert to the weakness and feebleness of dim, unseeing bulbs. I take no position, I make no judgment, at this point. Instead, I give the benefit of the doubt. I give it because my own expectation is that what transpired was not primarily about winning (at any cost also), but of wanting to have and live in a better Guyana. And of wanting, also, to be about not what political fruits are forthcoming as reward (and hence to be guarded against losing), but of giving of self in the highest ideals of self-sacrifice and impeccable patriotic comportment. After all, this is what democracy and clean governance is all about, what was fought for, and what has to be proven day in and day out. I do trust that we will hear from all of them, who were so loud and livid before. Time will tell.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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