The second year of an elected government

Aug 02, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – On this, the second year of Dr. Irfaan Ali as president, I went back to the newspapers and online newscasts to see if there were any conspicuous differences between the anti-government outputs in late 2020 and 2021 on the one hand, and 2022 on the other.

What I have found is incredible, sordid, mischievous and absolute sickening. In political theory, power gets less accountable, less responsible and more reckless, as time moves on. The theory is that the longer power is possessed, the more it is likely to encroach on the rational thinking of its possessor.

In late 2020 and early 2021, the themes, styles, shapes and energy of the condemnation of the Ali government were identical with those in 2022. Do not take my word for it, do the research yourself. What is the point?

There was never a honeymoon period adopted by the opposition parties, certain civil society groupings, certain sections of the total media landscape, the lunatic fringe (TLF), the usual suspects (TUS), the Creole middle class (CMC), the political nouveau lumpen (PNL). These sections of society never adopted the decent methodology of wait and see, meaning, give the newly elected government a chance then if after a year, there is the degradation in governance, your bandwidth of criticism can be enlarged.

From the time Dr. Ali was sworn in, the leftover passion of frustration that the PPP had returned to power was crystallised, distilled and expanded into full-blown hatred for the new government. There was no exception among those sections I listed above.

Read the newspapers, online newscasts, and look at social media from August 2020 and juxtapose the acidic irrationalities and emotional deformities about power abuse from that period with 2022 and you find a continuous trend without interruption.

On this day, the second year of Dr. Ali’s presidency, what has changed attitudinally among the opposition organisations, certain sections of civil society, certain media houses, TLF, TUS, CMC and PNL so that from the reading of those outputs in 2020 and 2021 compared with 2022, one can search for manifestations in the deterioration in governance.

You cannot analyse the use of power in 2022 based on the chastisements, condemnations and critiques of governance because the sermons of 2020 and 2021 with those of 2022 are the same. In other words, what we have is anti-government ranting based on anti-government feelings that omit sophisticated academic analysis.

So the question is what new will be in the assessments of the second year of Dr. Ali’s presidency as we read on this day the letter sections of the newspapers, the online newscast, look at the Zoom programmes and social media and read the output from TLF, TUS, CMC and PNL? The answer is that the songbook from 2020 will be the same document produced in 2022.

The mayhem of September 2020 has gone but it should be the yardstick that you should use to analyse those who will sermonise you today with their take of Dr. Ali’s presidential two years. From the time two African youths were murdered in Cotton Tree in 2020, the opportunity was there for people to show true colours.

Without even an infinitesimal piece of evidence that this was a political crime rather than a banal sociological incident that one sees all over the world, the adrenalin was uncontrollable. This was a monumental opportunity to pounce on the government. Those who were silent, when Guyana was perilously close to the abyss, found time, energy and uncontrollable decibels, to politicise a sociological incident.

On this, the second day of Dr. Ali’s presidency, the repertoire of 2020 will be produced. But more than that will be on show. What we will see today is the caricature of democracy and as this masquerade continues onto the next general election. As I wrote in a previous column, I don’t want to give off even an ephemeral utterance that puts me in the same context with those whose agenda is anti-government based on class and colour preference.

I repeat again and again, I do not believe and accept that Dr. Ali is an authoritarian leader. He may stumble as the years wore on and when he does, my conscience will have to be examined. I say so unapologetically. So what will be on display today?

We read that APNU+AFC plus the WPA will have a rally today to denounce the government. The announcement said it will be held at Burnham’s Court. I don’t know where Burnham’s Court is but I know the name was carefully chosen. So what’s in a name? The answer is the subliminal ethnic meaning. Ask Clive Thomas about what “The Buxton Proposal” is. You are not going to believe his answer.

(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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