Jumbies in the PNC, 2007; jumbies in the AFC and GOA, 2022

Jun 17, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – The Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) is reported in the press as saying that the GOA has association-memberships that are non-functional. The GOA went on to add that they hold no sporting events, have no physiology but simply turn up at voting time to decide the shape of the GOA’s governing body.
Looked at from any angle, this is immoral and a cancer to be excised from any society in the modern world. Nevertheless, it is a ubiquitous characteristic in this country. To write on fictional entities that exist in name only will take several columns.
That characteristic was last seen as recent as a week ago, last Saturday at the AFC’s congress. But before we deal with the horror story of fictional delegates inside the AFC’s house, let’s rewind the tape to the delegates who had to vote in the contest between Robert Corbin and Vincent Alexander for the leader position of the PNC in 2007.
Alexander withdrew because the controversies over the bonafide delegates were overwhelming. For example, the Wortmanville/Werk-en-Rust PNC group that was dormant for decades suddenly got life and sent dozens of delegates to the congress. For more on these non-existent groups at the PNC’s congress, see my two articles of 2007: “The PNC implodes today,” of Saturday, July 21, and “Shared governance or shared rigging,” of Tuesday, July 24.
What happened at the PNC’s congress in 2007 was repeated in 2022 in identical fashion at the AFC’s congress. This country has demonic tentacles that keep stretching. Long before it lost power in August 2020, the AFC’s active groups around Guyana were dying. How do I know this? Personally, I knew hundreds (yes, not dozens) that had moved on.
By the time August 2020 came and Guyana had a new president, the AFC’s groups became spent shells. Its groups around Guyana were long dead. Not even in Georgetown could the AFC resurrect a viable group. Last Saturday, what happened at the PNC congress in 2007 was on full display. The sudden appearance of new delegates was a pappy-show. They were handpicked.
What is stupid about those that praise the AFC is do they think that the PPP leaders do not know about these phantom groups that created a stage-managed election at the AFC’s congress last Saturday. In the small population of Guyana, there are no secrets. Do people out there believe that PPP activists in Region 1, Region 2, Region 3, etc., do not know that AFC groups in their areas do not exist?
The GOA must be the only active organisation in this country that is prepared to take a stand on this cancerous malady that has been plaguing this country. Groups, associations, organisations, political parties are given press coverage and prance around in the eyes of citizen when they are virtual ghosts.
I have written on this absolute moral repugnancy that really is a stink feature of the social landscape of this country. One man has headed an organisation for the past 47 years. No one in this land knows who the other persons in his outfit are. There are no publications of their names. They do not write or speak publicly, so the Guyanese people can know who they are. They can’t. They do not exist.
One of the ongoing political masquerades of this country is an entity named APNU. While typing this column, I deliberately chose not to look up the name of the political party of Keith Scott that is part of the APNU. I don’t know it. Guyanese don’t know it. There are non-existent groups that make up the formation of APNU and it insults the members of the PNC because it is the PNC that is giving credibility to these fictions.
Ms. Tabitha Sarab-Halley sits as an APNU parliamentarian. She has founded her own political party. Where is it? Mr. Jaipaul Sharma has birthed his own political party, where is it? There is a conglomeration of organisations that goes under the name Policy Forum. No one knows anything about the activities of the constituents that make up this body. This is the story about politics and political discourse in Guyana.
It will not stop. In two year’s time, just before the general election, more of these fictional constructs will be born. No one knows how to stop it. But the media keeps giving them coverage. The WPA got huge press coverage a few days ago that was headlined: “WPA ready to form broad-based anti-dictatorial movement to push for power-sharing.” Really! Come on man! If the WPA got more than six members, I will stop being a columnist.
(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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