Did I imagine it? I thought I saw a bracelet in the circus

Feb 14, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – It happens to hundreds of millions of people like me. As we head into old age, your imagination plays tricks on you. When controversial former minister, David Patterson, chose to climb on to the fence of the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCA) last Thursday to get into the compound when Parliament was waiting for the arrival of the president, I thought I saw he was wearing the million dollar gold bracelet, which he was improperly given.
When the police ranks snatched him off the fence, as he turned to the cameras to show them his underwear which was visible because the backside of his pants were torn, I did not see the sybaritic item on his hand. Did he wear it and it was stolen as he came back down to the ground into the crowd or is it my imagination?
I have spent over 50 years in political activism and I have seen politicians say and do asinine things but last Thursday was the most entertaining yet saddest time at the circus since colonial days. Let’s start with the clownish parts. To see a middle age gentleman like Patterson with a tight pair of denim jeans and a long-sleeve shirt stuck to his skin trying to scale the fence was pathetic. You just don’t do those things wearing such type of clothes at such age.
I watched the entire episode. He was trying desperately to get over and you can discern that when he was stuck, his reproductive organs were endangered. Now you may read into this a light moment. I’m serious. Watch the video and you will see the danger when he got stuck. It is predictable that when you put your leg over a fence and get stuck, you are endangering the organs that are inside your crotch. Before I move off this incident, I emphasize I am not joking.
Now for the sad part of the circus of Thursday, February 11, 2021 outside the (ACCC) where the National Assembly was convened. There are two parts to this crescendo of sadness. One revolves around Patterson, the other around Joe Harmon. As you watch Patterson try to get over the fence, you know he was trying to bring back the heroic days of his party, the AFC, when it was born in late 2005 and reached its highest peak in 2015 when the Guyanese people gave it a chance to transform this nation in ways people literally begged for.
But who in 2025 will vote for David Patterson and the AFC? Those days are gone. People who loved the AFC now hate them. The AFC attracts more disgust in the minds of Guyanese than any other political party. Patterson can attempt more “heroic” climbs until 2025 when the next election comes around but the AFC is dead and the AFC’s sister party, the PNC, is not getting back in power in the foreseeable future.
Now to Joe Harmon. I honestly feel Mr. Harmon is losing it. I am told that Moses Nagamootoo did not take the loss of power easily and may need the prayers of those who love him. One hopes Harmon is not heading in the direction, which Nagamootoo went into since August 2020. He is doing strange things like asking India to reject Charrandass as High Commissioner.
Harmon cut a pathetic figure outside the ACCC when he spoke to the press after the police ejected Patterson. Harmon asked if the police do not have better things to do with their time, like fighting crime. Rewind the tape six months ago when Harmon was just as powerful as the president. The police removed a GECOM Commissioner, Sase Gunraj, from the GECOM command centre at the Ashmin’s Building when only the GECOM Chairman could have made that request and she did not.
After Gunraj was escorted from the command centre, Harmon or President Granger or the Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan, or the Police Commissioner humiliated the commanding officer at the Ashmin’s Building, Edgar Thomas, by removing him from his post and consigning him to road duties elsewhere. What did Thomas do wrong to warrant such harshness?
Thomas refused the request to eject Gunraj because Gunraj was entitled to be at the command centre as a GECOM Commissioner. Harmon, Granger and Ramjattan should never be shown any respect by any Guyanese if they do not apologise to Thomas. Harmon was as powerful as his president when the police again disgraced themselves when they removed another GECOM commissioner, Robeson Benn, from observing GECOM operations for the CARICOM election recount at the ACCC. Harmon like Patterson is not ever going to taste power again.

(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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