The Opposition has to stand up and count for something

Mar 11, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

H@rd Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – More than any other time in this country’s post-independence existence, an Opposition of substance and rigour is needed. An Opposition is more than needed, it just is, has to be, must be a vital cog in the machinery of national governance. Now for the reality check: where is the Opposition? What happened to it? This is the worst possible time for any Opposition in Guyana to be weak, to be without knees, missing backbone. I regret to share my observation, my thinking that the Opposition PNC has come to this.

Where does this leave us? Who is this ‘us’ of which I speak? It is the Guyanese people, particularly those abandoned by the PPP brass of Dr. Ali, Dr. Jagdeo, and Dr. Nandlall. I throw in Dr. Nandlall because, as much as he has deteriorated in my eyes, he still has sufficient mental oomph to be a gamechanger.

Instead of surrendering in craven endorsement to everything that emerges from the glistening tome of Guyana’s domestic Machiavelli Jagdeo, Dr. Nandlall could be that restraining voice, that traffic cop to his bosses that things are going too fast and too far. Especially concerning oil postures. It is a way out hope, but I still table it. The crisis is that the PPP Government has abandoned the Guyanese people and all fancy themselves to be Britishers and Yankees.

It is at this juncture of punishing disenchantment that the listless people of Guyana cast about for, could urgently use, an Opposition that has some sturdy essences about it. In Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton, I thought there was the man.

While I was thinking so, the rest of Guyana have been asking one question: where is the main man? Yes, what has ever come about the vaunted Opposition Leader Norton? When there is one SoS after another being sent out for the Opposition, any Opposition, Guyanese shrank in silence, came to this dreadful pass: they are on their own. Just so that everyone is on the same page, when I speak of disturbed and desultory Guyanese, I am not speaking of PPP fat cats or perfumed heavyweight peacocks preening for the cameras.

Throughout, I am watching the Jagdeo-led PPP juggernaut running downhill and creating havoc with Guyanese aspirations, and there is not so much as a squeaky mouse of an Opposition to say: hold it! Or, not so fast! Or, over this dead body! Surely, the Opposition PNC cannot have descended to the dogs in this inglorious fashion? If there is no Opposition to fight for Guyanese, then the national outlook is grim.

First, the PPP stormtroopers have a wide-open highway to run amok and trample upon those Guyanese who dare to stand up and speak out. I can see Dr. Jagdeo grinning from ear to ear as though he has just won the latest Exxon sweepstakes. The truth is he did (again).

Second, the big man Jagdeo gets to sit back and leisurely take potshots at the PNC Opposition, and make fun of its once-feared leader, Mr. Norton.
Third, the plotter Jagdeo has the luxury of revisiting and expanding his enemies list (I assure my fellow Guyanese that he has one somewhere) and deciding who has earned the distinction of a special recognition and visitation from PPP-sponsored rogues and rabble rousers. Fourth, Jagdeo can be a Yorkshire terrier when dissenting Guyanese object to his schemes, but a waddling Peking duck (Beijing doesn’t sound right or feel right) when the Yankee colonizers run wild. Think Exxon.

My hope is that citizens come to an understanding of what the absence of a striding, cock-of-the-walk Opposition signifies. When a few ordinary people become the substitute Opposition or is identified as such by Dr. Jagdeo and his PPP army, then the Freedom House and OP and OPM platoons of goons have free passes at what passes for a civil opposition in Guyana and pick them off at will.

Civil society at its broadest and its best is not a good enough opposition force. Nobody voted for its members; and civil society is neither broad nor approaching anything substantial. A few spirited public commentators, if there are that many, questioning the PPP Government, or individuals pressing President Jagdeo, cannot and do not have any standing as a political opposition with muscle and machinery to match.

Having tabled the above, whether voted for or not, there is unquestionable utility in the presence of a real political opposition that is recognized as such. Given the numerical strength of the PNC, it stands in a category by itself as a powerful political force.

Though it has suffered from a long fall that struck its head hard, it is still the PNC that must be in the vanguard of challenges to the government and Jagdeo, its godlike figure (to himself). The PPP and Dr. J have had too much room to roam, and it is time for it to be tightly cramped. Guyana needs this. I would argue the PPP itself needs the PNC, since by itself, it is its own worst enemy. So, it is back to the future: where is the PNC? More pointedly, where art thou, Mr. Norton?

(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.)

GHK Lall, hard truths, opposition, PPP Govt.

Latest News