PPP Congress – a study in funny and fantasy

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

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – The word from SN on Sunday, May 5^th was that PPP General Secretary, Bharrat Jagdeo, came out swinging in the party’s Congress against isms.  Me, too; finally, there is something with which Dr Jagdeo and I are of one head.  I have always been against socialism and communism, so the Vice President and I are one.  The irony that should not be lost on citizens is that those isms are about one-man rule, at the core.  Hence, this is particularly amusing coming from Mr. Jagdeo.  On the other hand, I am against cronyism and nepotism and gangsterism and paganism, and it would be helpful to know where Jagdeo stands on those four isms.  It cannot be via lip service or on paper only, but in the irrefutable proof of reality.

To make myself clear, I am for the ism of criticism, about which it is obvious that Jagdeo cannot fathom or stomach in any amount and from any person.  Matters are only made worse when they have some element of truth in them. He goes bonkers every time, with the white part of his eyes showing.  To balance the scales, and before the rage of the rabbit descends on my head, I am with Guyana’s brightest light, President Ali, when he incorporated that other ism-multiculturalism-in his Indian Arrival Day message.  Thank God for at least one ism finding favour.  Incidentally, the same brightly self-haloed president is on record that he is for constructive criticisms, but on one condition only.  He gets the first and last word about what is constructive and what is not, and he reserves the right to determine how far such criticisms can go.  This is one tuff country.  Nonetheless, I must be in good standing with the PPP, since I am with the president and the vice president on what they are for and against relative to some of theisms that either enrage or put them to sleep.  It is why nobody wants to posture, talk, or write about ideology today.  Even Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have separated from their roots in the old isms and are now about money in this exciting new era of capitalism having the world at its feet, like some conquering Miss Universe diva.

Speaking about money, I was at the PPP Congress and absorbed the redshirted President Ali flashing effervescently about how VP Jagdeo sacrificed personal riches.  The things that people say and do in this country are just incredible.  This was according to KN also from Sunday May 5^th.  Only an incomparably astute practitioner of a certain kind of ethics and personal finance as Guyana’s President, Mohamed Irfaan Ali is capable of saying something like that, and then be allowed to get away with it.  Presidential immunity does come in handy lots of times.  It is when he says things like these that President Ali’s own people start thinking lesser of him.  Meanwhile, the next time that I run into VP Barry, I plan to have a word with this man of magic to find out the secret of how he sacrificed personal riches, and still ended up with a palace in Pradoville II.  I would like to know since I could find some use for one like that for myself.  It should be noticed that I stuck to real estate holdings in Pradoville and didn’t cast my eyes to other sections of town.  Also, this can be told to my fellow Guyanese straight off the bat.  They didn’t teach the type of personal sacrifices that Bharrat Jagdeo made in the handful of American schools that I attended, or in my very rigid home growing up.  Nor is that special kind of mystery sacrifice and the mentality that supports it part of the makeup of the people with whom I break bread.  I exhort fellow citizens to pause for a minute and do something to improve their understanding of a politician’s life in Guyana.  Look at the people who Jagdeo surrounds himself with, those who are his bosom pals.  If they are the kind of characters (along with Jagdeo himself) that make personal sacrifices, then there must be rethinking of my whole relationship with God.  For here I am, making all these personal sacrifices (living in this country is one), and I can’t even afford a cheap second house, or an expensive top of the line dog.

Last, it was the honourable VP himself who told his captive Congress audience that only the PPP is equipped, experienced enough to lead Guyana forward.  Of course, there can be no denying that only the PPP is equipped with a special kind of people who know exactly what to do with taxpayers’ budget and oil money.  Equipped on how to convert it for their own prosperity.  Equipped with the unique skills to read tender rules and bids documents in a certain way, so that contract awards end up in certain hands.  Equipped with the extraordinary vocabulary of one leader who lives on some fantasy island, and whose idea of transparency is whenever he says something is so [possessing transparency], then it can only be so.  After four years of gaining invaluable experience of that kind in those areas, the PPP is, indeed, equipped to lead Guyana into the new era.  It is the era that started in August 2020: one that is heading straight to hell.  Remember I said so.

(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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• Bharrat Jagdeo, General Secretary, GHK Lall, hard truths, PPP congress

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