The opposition leads in selling out Guyana

Oct 18, 2020 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,

I look closer and closer at the opposition and I learn more daily. It is toothless, clueless, spineless. The opposition PNC is tongue tied, tied down, and downright asinine, in one humiliation after another delivered by the hands of its conspirator-partners the PPP; but yet it grins and bears. But the worst part of it is that the crumbed, fallen opposition is not alone in selling out the hopes and aspirations of the weak and vulnerable in this society. As I elaborate, I focus first on the opposition.
Its own chairwoman is embattled, and its leaders are cowardly and MIA in sniveling defense. They should change their colour to yellow. Its own people from its public service stronghold-clean and competent people – are demonized and victimized – and the opposition is a study in absenteeism and paralysis. Its own voters, some two hundred thousand of them, are disenfranchised, through zero board representations, and it is sparring about the puerility of ‘illegitimacy.’ When the party’s supporters need horses for courses, they get donkeys balking in mulish obstinacy before the many demanding national challenges, such as oil integrity, ethical governance, pragmatic representation. I look at these characters, and I behold plodding (compromised) minds puttering about aimlessly and uselessly.
The incompetence is palpable; but the not-so-mysterious nonchalance is wounding to Guyana, and beneficial to its partners in crime, the PPP government. And especially on the much depended upon oil on which the many Guyanese poor have pinned prospects. Now I thought I was the only one calling out the opposition leadership. But a few days ago, a friend read four Facebook posts that castigated and damned the coalition’s leadership. Interestingly, to man and woman, they were all diehard PNC loyalists. As I have said publicly, what we have is no opposition and a 1-party state, however charitably analyzed.
What is going on? What is responsible for the opposition’s malaise and indifference? What was offered, finalized, grabbed, and found personally fulfilling? How much was paid for these betrayals now undeniable? How much more is involved, dangled, promised? Nobody could be this stupid as to know nothing, then actually admit to it! No brain trust, no high inner councils could be this treacherous! Surely, we – myself and others – could not have failed so terribly with ballot cast? Well, I did! and it is no more voting for me. For anybody, anywhere!
When I review all this, the opposition today amounts to being less than a bump on a log; it is a worm-infested, termite-ridden distortion. The human worms and termites currently consume each other in one accusation and counter attack after another. Meanwhile, the PPP’s equivalent of Stalin (oil and oversight, laws and regulations, character and integrity and, of course, money and the god that it is) has grown, plays a better game from hard lessons learned. No fool is he. The opposition is content to play the role of also-rans and has-beens in subtle support of PPP tyranny, through upholding and endorsing government excesses, deceptions, and cover-ups. My concern is that when there is no respected and trusted central leadership, then, the hot-blooded get damaging ideas. Nobody is in control then. Not even government.
But the self-disgracing and disgraceful opposition is not alone. Stabroek News, once and long a bastion of fierce independence, was a powerhouse of ultra-aggressiveness, sometimes rightly, during elections and the so-called struggle for democracy is now well pleased to be ultra-defensive to the point of, sometimes inexplicable, pulseless, blandness and patented innocuousness. As I do so, I note its core constituency, the establishment set. And as I share, I do hope that all Guyanese now have a fuller appreciation of what was the end game in the American led charge for what was bandied about as electoral democracy and all that bs. As I insisted then, and do again, this is about their interests (and B, C, and E) and was never about Guyana’s in the least.
Similarly, the religious houses, once spiritedly venturesome in the troublesome waters of Guyanese politics, have naught to say about faithful governance, nothing on anything that cheats the welfare of their individual flocks. And though unruffled, again I find myself being the wrong man with the wrong ideals. And so, too, is civil society, once rowdy and vehement about elections ethics and the patriotic has discovered the quietude of comforting places to count its enriching collections. It is good to be in the right place at the right time, while playing the right cards. The first of the latter is to kowtow obsequiously before the right leaders. They have all done very well for themselves with more promised.
Yes! The opposition is at the head of the pack in betraying the expectant poor of this country. But it is not alone. It is not the only group without anchor or compass. Or the pretenses and postures of before. On this Guyana sails placidly along. For now…

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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