TIGI, GHRA, Vincent Adams and morality in politics

Sep 02, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Each time the human opens his/her mouth or picks up his/her pen, moral awareness must be the basis that determines the emanation. Moral values have almost been elusive to define. There has been no consensus on the subject among some of the greatest minds in philosophy.
In the banality of everyday life, there are elementary and fundamental values that bring humans close together because there is a common understanding that these norms hold civilization together; for example, equality before the law.
No human will admit that the best cancer specialist should not be charged for running a red light; no human will admit that it is right to refuse service to a shopper in a supermarket because of the racial make-up of the person. No human will accept an advertisement for a postal delivery service with the note that the person must be tall, muscular and good-looking.
These are the little moral values that have contributed to the prolongation of civilization. We are all guided by them except the bestial human.
Against this backdrop, it is useful to examine the politics of morality and the morality of politics against the five-month ordeal of election rigging. I have incessantly argued in five months of columns that one’s attitude to the election impasse should be a criterion to judge our character, our morality and the nature of our politics.
I recall during the election rigging, I took objections to the contents of letters on Guyana’s politics in the newspapers by Dr. Alissa Trotz, Dr. Arif Bulkan and Dr. Omar Shahabudin McDoom, bemoaning the relentless, ethnic struggle for dominance by the PPP and PNC and its frightening implications. These political descriptions were sickening in the sense that they were published at a time when the very rule of law, the right to vote and the future of Guyana were all threatened by five months of rigged election and not one line was devoted to this dangerous precipice we were sitting on, the absence of which tells you about how these people see politics in this land.
In the newspapers a few days ago, there appeared two separate letters, one from Transparency Institute Guyana Inc. (TIGI) and the other from Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) rejecting the government’s decision to require Dr. Vincent Adams, Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, to take his leave.
But where were the publications from TIGI and GHRA when the very social and legal foundations of this society were in danger within a timeframe that lasted five months? By their very names, TIGI and GHRA should have been in the forefront of the struggle to have our right to vote and for that ballot to be counted.
There was one, only one convoluted letter on the election crisis in the newspaper by TIGI and it made no reference to the lengths GECOM was going in order to manipulate the election results. I am one citizen of this country who has no respect for this organization. I find it to be an extremely opportunistic body, seeking publicity for narrow reasons.
I also believe its leadership is made up of hypocritical people, one of whom told me in the presence of Donald Rodney that he only reads one newspaper in Guyana. See my two columns on the double standards and blatant hypocrisy of TIGI – Friday, November 22, 2019, “Transparency Institute’s hypocrisy on display at the Rodney vigil” and Wednesday, October 18, 2017, “My mind does not miss these things but….”
I remember when under the vice-chancellorship of Dr. Ivelaw Griffith even the UG Council, which he reported to, could not have information on his salary and TIGI refused to pronounce on this egregious lack of transparency. When I called upon the head of TIGI to do the morally right thing, he found refuge in the explanation that since he works at UG, it could be seen as a conflict of interest if TIGI was to get involved. This was nothing but an asinine explanation for avoiding responsibility.
Strangely, for an organization whose work is to safeguard human rights, the GHRA had absolutely nothing to say when the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) produced six, different results for the 2020 general elections in Guyana. In one of those results, 150, 000 votes were discarded by the CEO and he offered no explanation. This was the kind of immoral and illegal depravities you would expect an organization concerned with human rights and the other with transparency issues to denounce. But suddenly TIGI and GHRA found an incident to ensure they get their publicity – one of the leaders of APNU+AFC, Vincent Adams, the same APNU+AFC that tried to rig the election.

(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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