H@rd Truths By GHK Lall – An Incredible Presidential Slip

Jul 22, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – President Ali has a right to make up his own mind, arrive at his own decisions, and choose his own people.  In terms of the latter, the knowledgeable may detect the bizarre recently, what insults the President and his people; nonetheless, the President retains the right to surround himself with the slippery, even what could be labeled as Guyana’s equivalent of US Senator Joe McCarthy of 1950s vintage.

My humble position is that President Ali manifested poor judgment, made one of his most unpardonable blunders with his recent choice of helper and tugboat captain for his last press conference.  It was jaw dropping, tantamount to a kick in the teeth to Guyanese, none more than veteran PPP supporters.  Any citizen has a right to earn his living in whatever manner appeals to him.  It could be cleanly or coarsely in the smoothest terms, or via what causes puking or a rush for the nearest vaccination center.  But no President should embrace any of that, or be advised to do so.  Civilized men shrink from having certain people in their company.

I bypass one person per media house and one question per media presence, give a pat on the back to the owner of the fertile mind from which that originated, and now offer this to the public.  There is low, and then there is low; and, of course, the president’s time is too precious to squander it over interminable questions about oil, and what is going to be done with it. For sure, it is not Stalin’s or Putin’s Russia (as yet), but it is recorded as Ali’s Guyana.

In Ali’s Guyana, I am certain he can be wiser, do better, come out looking cleaner, smelling sweeter.  He should have consulted with his former Presidents who write in the media, and another former minister now a commissioner, and also a media contributor.

But President Ali didn’t even have to go to that trouble of bothering men whose eyesight might be poorer, and memory just north of dodderer.  All that President Ali had to do, the furthest he had to look, was right in the Office of the President’s secretariat.  He has a pastor, the Right (Most) Reverend Mr. Findley.  He has Mr. William Cox, a mean machine, and a dean of things Christian, all by himself.  He has Mr. Abraham who knows his way around the unpinned grenades and hidden roadside devices.  And there is Ms. Marcia Nadir-Sharma, the first leg of whose hyphenated name should not lead anyone astray, as this good citizen from the distaff side is at the apex of her senses, wits, and skills.  Why go anywhere else for an assistant in the presidential press moment, Dr. President, when there is this galaxy of primetime servants and officers of center court in attendance?

If the president just had to have his head and go outside the paddock, then there are those media veterans with their individual pristine standing.  For proven PPP stalwarts and comforters in the media, there is Mr. Neaz Subhan, Ms. Michella Abraham, and Mr. Edward Layne.  Guyanese may not like them, but at least they could stomach them.  And if President Ali wanted to get really adventurous, with a genuine dab of his vaunted ‘One Guyana’ in it, then there was always Mr. Enrico Woolford or Russell Lancaster to do the honors; maybe even an Ariana Gordon or Kiana Wilburg to demonstrate the expansiveness of the presidential mind.  But the President had to have his head, and now that he went and stuck his nose out, the top of it got caught in a pinch.  Learning from errors is the best medicine for a young, green (not PNC) President.

The choice of press conference backer had to have caused luminaries like Messrs. Ramkarran and Ramotar, and the departed Chase and Cheddi, some grim flinching.  Mister Gerry would be definitely happy that he got one of his long-time cronies inside the Presidential circle.  But, surely, the President can be a shade more choosy, a lot more knowing, about the tortured history of the PPP, and by whose orchestrations some of those batteries took place.  Better could have been done.  I regret that it wasn’t, and now there are these ‘guidelines’ to govern presidential press bar-b-ques.  Bash, slash, gash, and mash are now in season, with Guyanese roasted on a slow fire.  The winter of our discontents multiplies furiously; the summers grow longer, and hotter and hotter.

Last, I have a humble recommendation to make to President Ali, and it is the essence of simplicity.  On the next occasion that there is a need for a helper with press conference coordinates, please come to yours truly.  I am quite capable of pointing to the right and proper people, even though I have only just come back here.  These things have to be done with a little more of what is genuine sparkle, a touch more of what is class.  Don’t descend to the pits, Mr. President.  Think of political ancestors, and their ordeals, compliments of newfound mercenaries and allies freshly minted and let loose on citizens.

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

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• GHK Lall, H@rd Truths, people, Presidential, terms

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