Profiles in Leadership – Mohamed the second

Jul 18, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

There’s a new kid in town.  Everybody loves him….  Don’t let them down.

Kaieteur News –  Imagine this reality.  A man with not much of age on his side, not plenty relative to political experience, and across the 83,000 square circles of Guyana, the people come out to meet him, greet him, touch him.  It is Mohamed the Second.  The first Guyanese one turned out to be a pushover, content to be a nonentity, and a king of incompetency.  That’s looking on the bright side; so, figure out the other side, the kinds of snakes that crawl there, and how many.  Mohamed the Second, whether he is the genuine article or not, Guyanese seem to be ready for he.  For every one citizen coming out, there has to be two or three more watching, waiting, for September 1.  He has become cathartic for abused Guyanese, a moment of venting; expressing their despair at being disinherited.  Can he deliver?

Imagine if there was no fear in Guyana, how many more would show their faces, give a cheer.  Before Alistair Routledge, there was Alistair McLean with Fear is the Key.  Still, from Lima Sands to Letter Kenny, from Port Kaituma to Port Mourant, everywhere that Mohamed the Second goes, he creates waves.  And a brain aneurysm cum heart attack for the likes of Bharrat Jagdeo, the political lawman, the political taxman, and the political badman. The latter could be found in two State agencies.  Both deal in enforcement.

Imagine that a Guyanese with barbwire around his head could still inspire Guyanese to shake his hand, whisper a word of support in his ear.  Barbwire has another name: US sanctions.  The Bible had its share of lepers.  The divine providence that America claims as its own, enshrined with the power to create its own lepers.  Sanctions.  Those made into pariahs and outcasts, of which Mohamed the Second has been identified as one.  A strange thing happened this time around.  Rather than banishment to the edges of the city, Mohamed the Second stands plum in the center.  People come out.  Guyanese people believe.  It is an indication of their disgust with the PPP and its galaxy of goons and self-enrichers, their desperation for someone new and fresh.  Sanctions be damned.

Imagine that!  Guyanese, normally the most docile of citizens, standing up and thumbing their noses at Donald Trump and his Justice and Treasury departments.  Take those sanctions and put a sock in them, then sit on them.  This means that the PPP is that bad.  What else?  Why else is Jagdeo looking like he has a serious case of the gripes, and tortured by hemorrhoids.  Why else is Attorney General Nandlall looking like a man without a Plan B, since the Yanks heard Mohamed the Second’s intelligence streams in Bridgetown.  For full disclosure, in the event that the honorable chief lawman of Guyana decides to persist with his maneuvers and magic concoctions for local and foreign audiences, I may have to do what has been done with his boss: strike his name from writings.  Just strike, and not spit.  Not yet.

Imagine that a citizen who came out of nowhere (politically), one with no pedigree (politically), no known substance (politically) could generate such a commotion, evoke such consideration (politically) in Guyana.  There’s a new kid in town…  The newcomer has progressed in a flash from stranger to contender.  He must have a strong team, vision, strategy, and plan.  My own polls tell me that, if he plays his cards right, the undecideds could cast their ballots against his name.  Psychologically speaking, there’s so much fear in this country that the undecideds could be a much larger number, and all because anxious Guyanese see the cold, clammy hand of the PPP in every corner and cranny.  Statistically speaking, the bulk of those fence sitters, could very well go Mohamed the Second way.  He doesn’t have to be very good.  It is simply because the PPP is that bad, then badder, and the baddest that Guyanese have ever encountered here.  I said so before, which is why I differ slightly from the GHRA when it came out swinging: “‘Dictatorial phase’ of the PPP/C parallels the Burnham Presidency’” (SN, June 24-2025).  Parallels, Mr. GHRA? is Mr. McCormick kidding!  The PPP/C surpassed Burnham ages ago, which is why Mohamed the Second is such an attraction, gains such traction on the ground with the masses.  It’s not just the ‘dictatorial phase’, but assassination phase, corruption phase, disrespect for the rule of law phase.

The PPP still has its claws embedded deep in the people, with fearmongering raging.  Imagine that a neophyte, a man with a blight overhead, has Guyanese multitudes seeing him as a savior.  The man brings nothing politically, yet Guyanese are waiting, hoping, that he represents something different.  Time will show how much.  He may not be the kingmaker, but is he the feared spoiler?

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• Alistair Routledge, GHK Lall, Guyana Elections, leadership, Mohamed

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