The APNU+AFC is a deadly monster

Mar 05, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – The Opposition APNU+AFC is wounded and a wounded animal is at its most desperate and deadly. As such, Guyanese have to be ready and prepared for an Opposition, which will unleash problems for our society because the Opposition can see no way out of its present predicament.
The wounds suffered by the Opposition were self-inflicted. It tried to hold on to political power and when the hammer came down; it found itself discredited and disreputable.
An animal is at its most dangerous when it is wounded. Human beings, when they are cornered and wounded, have two main responses: flight or fight. The APNU+AFC cannot run anywhere because it is cornered and will scratch, slice, stomp and slash at anything, which appears in its path when cornered.
The Opposition has boxed itself into a corner. It spread false narratives to its supporters in the hope that these supporters would not turn against it. These supporters were never going to rally behind the Opposition charges of electoral fraud; and so the Opposition took the next obvious course to protect their exalted positions by refusing to recognize the PPP/C government in the hope that this would deflect from their own obvious shortcomings, which led to their electoral defeat to the PPP/C.
The United States had imposed visa sanctions on those persons it is felt were responsible for undermining democracy. Other places, such as the European Union and Canada, had threatened sanctions but did not impose any. It is not clear how many of those visas were restored, but the country will know when the restrictions of the pandemic are lifted and persons are free to travel.
The PPP/C has blundered by not sustaining the lobby for the maintenance and extension of the sanctions on those persons guilty of undermining democracy. The lobby should have been carried to the member States of the Caribbean Community so that this disgraceful lot would never deplane in a foreign country again.
Faced with international ostracism and proving increasingly inept in their debates in the National Assembly, the Opposition is now seeing the writing on the wall. It substandard performance in the just-concluded debates on the National Budget is matched only by the visionless and vacuous Budget itself.
The Opposition has turned the Budget debate into a shouting match. And the government side, itself lacking in intellectual mettle, has been most willing to comply. The Opposition has offered nothing of substance to the Budget debate. It has played no small part in reducing the debate to public spectacle better suited for a fish market.
The Opposition has been found seriously wanting. Its questions in interrogating the Budget Estimates have been feeble and embarrassing at times. It has failed to expose the shortcomings of the government’s planned expenditures. Even when it questioned the electricity charges for one government agency, it found to its dismay that a huge chunk of these charges related to liabilities inherited from the time it was in government.
The APNU+AFC lack effective leadership. The APNU has now been reduced to the PNC/R and the WPA, and the PNC/R has little regard for the WPA. The AFC has in recent times saw a number of its leading activists depart from its camp. Internal problems are therefore dogging the Coalition and further splintering the grouping.
The PPP/C, in the meantime, is exposing the skullduggery and malfeasance, which took place during the APNU+AFC’s tenure. It is painting a picture of extravagance, nepotism, cronyism wastefulness and ineptitude. And the APNU+AFC has no answers to these charges.
The APNU+AFC therefore is like a cornered rat. It has no way to run and can only now lash out desperately in the hope of escaping further political injuries. As such, one can expect the APNU+AFC to resort to that old tricks of seeking to stir controversies – whether contrived or otherwise – as it did to exacerbate the outrage following the deaths of two teenagers in West Coast Berbice last year.
The public must brace itself for some creative narratives emanating from the APNU+AFC. It must understand that the main Opposition is a badly wounded animal. But the people must also know that such an animal is at its most dangerous when it is wounded.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)