Politicians: experts at hypocrisy

Apr 27, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Webster’s New World Dictionary, Second College Edition, has this among its meanings for hypocrisy: ‘a pretense to virtue’ and ‘a pretending to be what one is not…’ Either serves well in identifying the essences of one crop after another of Guyanese politicians. The current head of the Guyana chapter of a reputable watchdog group with international footprints took it up several notches in the article titled “Politicians are experts at hypocrisy -Transparency Guyana President” (KN April 9). Now, we take it still higher: many Guyanese politicians are world class hypocrites, in a class of their own, and the higher they go up the political power ladder, the more blatant their hypocrisies.

We have heard about clean governance uttered in sparkling phrases and postures. The longstanding reality is that Guyanese have been living for decades with dirty deeds and dirty deals of dirty Guyanese politicians. It is now more obvious daily that there are none better at hypocrisy than the present cabal of PPP/C Government politicians. They sing one song and dance to another. Ask a simple question and the floodgates of abuse crash open. Only men and women who have things to hide conduct themselves in such suspicious ways.

The record is revealing of how good (‘experts at hypocrisy’) Guyanese politicians become at the hypocrisy game, a governing culture nowadays. There is nothing more important than this nation’s oil patrimony, and its proper management. The government and its self-serving leaders can talk all they want about diversification, but all roads lead right back to the same oil sector that they shun like some dreadful skin disease. There is so much that rests on, hoped-for, powered by, and could be possible from Guyana’s oil wealth. But of this vital economic sphere, government political operators are only comfortable answering the questions that do not probe too deeply below the surface.

The PPP/C Government wants to answer only those meaningless, softball questions from helpful and shameless media sycophants that do not giveaway their weaknesses, their farces, and their failures. The preference is for these to be left alone and covered up. One of the most conspicuous recent examples of these evasive and self-protective practices by the PPP/C Government has to do with how its biggest and boldest voices were all for renegotiation of the destructive 2016 oil contract, how terrible it was for Guyana, and how much they were going to do to change the equation to favor Guyana more.

That renegotiation was what was promised by the PPP when it was in Opposition. Now, that it has the levers of power in its hands, the PPP/C Government’s people are talking from the other side of their mouths. Now there are no Guyanese who are more for not doing anything about renegotiating the same oil contract than the politicians who committed to doing so. Clearly, the politicians who promised to renegotiate the contract were engaged in outright pretenses. Just as obviously, their commitment to go to the mat for better for this country could best be described as a sleazy concoction, if not a crime by itself.

Today, politicians in Guyana do not limit their hypocritical antics to splitting hairs, they are smart enough to choose which hairs to split. Beforehand, their subtle deceptions went over the head of ordinary Guyanese, but that is no longer the case today, as Transparency Guyana’s President emphasized. Only willing fools fall for the tricks and nuanced misrepresentations of local politicians. No amount of leadership noise, or putdown, or hostility is going to deter Guyanese, or succeed in obscuring their visions, their oil beliefs and hopes. Having been accustomed to hearing one hypocrisy after another from both of the major political parties, Guyanese are now quick to detect doubletalk and double-dealing. The more Guyanese politicians, either in government or opposition, open their mouths to attack or defend, the more they expose themselves for the hypocrites they are the bone, and much worse. Hypocrisy is about the slippery, and that is our politicians to a tee. Hypocrisy has no choice but to foster and energize a government and an environment characterized by secrecy. It is the Guyana environment of today with oil, thanks to government and leadership hypocrisies.

Editorial, Government, politicians, PPP/C, Transparency Guyana President

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Politicians: experts at hypocrisy

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