Unready, maybe even unfit

Jun 27, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The presidency of Guyana, of anywhere, is only as good as the person holding that highest of national offices. As the president goes, so does the standards of that presidency. The local presidency today is struggling with decline, the gloom that comes from lack of resonance. To make matters even more unsatisfactory, there are these practices that tarnish the presidency, because they tamper with local equanimity and spirit. Workers in the media, from men to women, from veterans to the upcoming, have been pummeled by President Irfaan Ali for trying to do the best job possible in a tough environment.

The president, himself a relatively youthful holder of the most demanding national office, should appreciate that unnerving questions must be asked, unpalatable issues confronted. But for those, and much more, there is this palpable presidential impatience, these crude and classless instances, where there is more than a loss of control. There is an abandonment of the respect that is an inseparable obligation of the presidency. We at this publication will be bold and assert that there is a seeming readiness to pay short thrift to the self-respect that just must be part and parcel of any president’s management of himself.

President Ali has been close to four years on the job. In a society as torn as Guyana, one where transparency and the truths that are an insistent aspect of its makeup, the uncomfortable and the disturbing must be put on the public table. A president, any leader of substance and one who cherishes a wholesome reputation, does not retaliate by lashing out at those searching doggedly for answers to difficult questions. Citizens have a right to frank and full answers, and President Ali who loves to talk about democracy should know this.

Regardless of how inconvenient certain questions may be, or how uneasy they make the president, clean and clear answers must be forthcoming on the burning issues. There should be no attempts to obscure, nor water down, nor deny, those searching for truth to relay to the national readership. It is highly improper and always unacceptable for any leader, from the highest to the lowest, to resort to abuse and insult to overpower those who are a vital cog in the machinery of a true democracy. Guyana’s president loves to preen in feathery proclamations about democracy at work in the local arena. It is only one side of the coin, for he has the duty to prove it. In his hands and through the standards to which he adheres, openness and calmness must become President Ali’s guiding star. If a president does not have the purity of light about him, then what could be said of the nature of his star…. There are stars that inspire because of their brightness, and from which an appealing transcendence soars. Then there are stars that are dark, and which glimmer with what is perilous to the prospects of a country and its citizens.

The more that President Ali finds pleasure in being about what demeans the smaller, the truth seeker, the more he raises questions about his readiness for the great office that he holds. The grand office of the president must be characterized through thick and thin by a consistent gracefulness. If not, then there are good grounds to contemplate the fitness of the officeholder. If not, then there is more cause to assess the damage that results to those who look to him for straight answers on the controversial subjects. If not, what follows are the increasing doubts about the caliber of the leadership of a nation that has gained a horrible reputation of corrupt practices. A nation bathed in impenetrable darkness by those with sweeping powers in their hands. The abuse of media workers misuses presidential powers. Insulting those whose calling is membership in the vaunted Fourth Estate is a sick, incoherent leadership indulgence. Presidents take great care to conduct themselves in a manner befitting their extraordinary office, and the greater expectations attached to it. President Ali should think and think again about how much by his own words and his own hand, he stirs concerns about his readiness and fitness for the place that he occupies.

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Editorial, media, National, Offices, President

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