September surprise

Jun 02, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- The mystery is over, September.  The September surprise that is not that much of a surprise.  Forget about the clashing voices coming out of GECOM.  To register my distaste, no reference will be made to that word -the e word.  How can I, when there is nothing that remotely resembles a contest in the making.  I declare September a no contest affair from today, about 100 days prior, new entrant or no new entrant.

If somebody said PPP, that has all the hallmarks of a no-brainer.  If anyone, by some random development, encounters a local political UFO, then I encourage them to share the startling news, but on one condition only.  That the sighting has substance, some measure of seriousness, and staying power.  Well, Guyanese got what they asked for: there’s a new kid in town, and like the song from the Eagles said: ‘Great expectations, everybody’s watching you…Johnny come lately…everybody loves you, so don’t let them down…walking away and they’re talking behind you.”  There Guyana is, there he is.  Despite thinking to the contrary, I still believe that Guyanese are set to have what they are guaranteed to have: a one-horse race with one reality, i.e., nothing but a one result return.  Closer now, but still a one result story.

 What is Guyana going to have post September 1, that’s the sum of my interest.  Note, please, that I have quickly gone past the big day itself.  October or November was where my head was, but I did say lookout for August, because it would be the stroke that left the flatfooted and desultory opposition in an even more desolate state.  A non-presence, a nonentity, and a non-performer.  Not even a bump on a log calling for careful watching.  Tragic, isn’t it, that when Guyanese are scrounging around for an alternative, they end up with the secretive that has all the inspiration of a full-strength laxative.  I think that has what could be cathartic.  After five years of the PPP Government’s horror show, with the law made a mockery of, the most that conscientious and law-abiding Guyanese have to look forward to, is a more unchecked and undeniable horror show.  A steamroller powered by a juggernaut.  After all the oil, all the writing and talking, all the visioning and strategizing, this is where Guyana is.

So, I am still with post September 1.  How will Guyana be?  What can Guyanese expect?  At best, five more years (perhaps 25) of the PPP at its monstrous worst.  For where are the inhibiting hands, the restraining presences?  Who are they, and where to find them?  At worst, I am thinking of a Guyana hung out to dry, an intensification of five years ago, and an extension of what happened then.  Those who are busy counting the days to 9/1, serve this country better by refocusing their priorities on the day after.  A day only would be a miracle.  But 2025 would still have four months left; may they be short ones, and sweet ones, too.  I confess publicly to a rarity -a little morsel of uncertainty.  What is shaping up to be a no-contest business, could also be visited by that unwanted visitor – a no acceptance messenger.  The underpinnings were always present, and loudly, consistently so.  Biometrics never entered the picture, itself a bone-in-the-behind; and but there was contentiousness about ‘bloated lists’, the impartiality of GECOM, and the regular familiar bitter wrangling and scrapping that is now second nature to humankind and, even more bitterly, dear old Mama Guyana.

Some may have concluded that I am already bored stiff with Guyana’s version of e-business.  Right first time.  With a careful eye fixed on the Ethnic Commission, Integrity Commission, and Police Commission, I think Guyanese got some trailers on what could be in the making.  If there was so much rage over an autopsy result, then the biggest, most watched, result in Guyana may just have had its precedent.  Because if there was that kind of incendiary energy over an autopsy result, then it eludes me how the September 1 result could be taken on the chin and with a grin.  Then, there have been those mystery moments that have gone largely unmentioned, and also largely unsolved.  Who is who, and what is what, doesn’t leave feeling right, and always in between, the power of money, and those around it.

At the top, I said that the result is foregone.  My reflections are concentrated on where Guyana is going.  May the best team win.  The problem is that the other side cannot be found, a no-show, if ever there was one.  Guyanese clamored for democracy.  Since they have proven to be incapable of dealing with the intricacies of democracy, they must now batten down for autocracy and tyranny.  Me, I joining de PPP.

(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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