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I call on Mr. Granger – let there be some leadership pride, honour too

Jan 24, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

I am disappointed. I waited for, and hoped that, some decency would surface, and that I would be spared having to take matters to a place where I didn’t want to go. One that required a sharper, heavier mailed fist. I take aim at former President David Granger, and his possible role in this unending disturbing Leader of the Opposition fiasco; it parallels too much the agonizing post March 2 elections delay.
Again, I go back to the beginning. I said publicly in 2015 that I, who had never voted before, was going to vote for Mr. Granger. I thought I sensed a man of honour and standing. I may have to eat crow now, in the throes of this grinding Opposition Leader standoff. Despite being armed with some misgivings, I voted again for Mr. Granger in 2020. Notwithstanding what I considered some leadership failures – distance, slowness in reacting to troubling circumstances involving comrades, and too much of a general hands-off approach – I voted as before in the 2020 elections. Now there is what can only be termed this naked trauma that wrenches party and wider country also as to who should be the Leader of the Opposition. There is the strong sense of a huge letdown.
Presently, no great analysis is needed for this crucial check and balance Opposition Leader position. I say, though, that this paralysis is crippling, embarrassing, and furnishes ripe fodder for foes of the national well-being. They are Guyanese, not foreign. I have heard about the List and who is the Representative of the List, and with whom the decision rests to bring this tiring situation to the swiftest conclusion. There is also this provision for a two-thirds vote that closes out the issue, one way or another; from all indications, it favours Mr. Aubrey Norton. It is why I urge the former President and Leader not to let matters degrade further, but to be statesmanlike about this leadership issue, identify Mr. Norton, and move on. Everybody moves on to whatever is ahead.
For this to continue so long, so publicly, and so disturbingly sends all the wrong messages about the group. It hobbles the man waiting to take the reins. It gets him off to a bad start, with the weight of this indecision and controlling vision sure to hamper him. As I consider this, I think I made a mistake, and I admit this openly. The fault line is not with the current Leader of the Opposition. It is with the former President, the Representative of the List, and the spearhead of whatever else that I don’t know presently. It is Mr. Granger.
This is not to his advantage. The legacy or memory that he should wish. For there is the risk that he could be remembered primarily for this delay, this insistence on long distance control. As I reflect on these developments in the Opposition, I cannot help but to compare what Mr. Granger is up to, with what unfolded in the PPP camp pursuant to the machinations of Guyana’s standing Vice President of today. It is believed that Mr. Joseph Harmon is along for the ride, due to the controlling visions and maneuvers of Mr. Granger, the man behind the throne. As Guyanese know, there is that parallel in the PPP/C Government, where the incumbent head of state is just that – a head without a state over which he is the real governor. The real power, the only power, is Guyana’s Vice President.
This is mirrored in this stop and start, talk and balk, involving the current Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Granger, and now the AFC chief. There is this game being played before a fascinated (and repelled) Guyana, with substantive leaders, as voted for by the people, being marginalised and made into mocking stocks. Something is wrong with this picture. And because it has Mr. Granger’s fingerprints all over it, it is a source of severe pain for me, given the fact that I didn’t think him capable of such subterfuges and these drawn-out manipulations; the same that occurred in the 2020 elections.
There is a harsh lesson in all this, from government side and opposition side. There is this holding on, these slick side arrangements that pretend at one thing in public, while the reality behind the scenes is a different creature, an unrecognisable, unacceptable one. As I ponder this, I draw closer to understanding why this society is always embroiled in dispute and disrepute, and rarely that which is bruited about smoothly, deceptively. Last, I see why some Guyanese of great profoundness have nothing to do with politics and politicians.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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