The Complacency of Power

Jul 29, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

Kaieteur News – There is a curious thing happening in the ruling party these days. The PPP/C so often the underdog in this country’s political history, has grown smug. Its leaders speak not with the cautious confidence of a party seeking to earn another term, but with the dismissive bravado of those who believe that the election has already been won. This, in politics, is always dangerous.

The PPP behaves as though the coming elections are a mere formality. Its ministers parade the successes of the past four years—new highways, new schools, new housing schemes, and billions in cash transfers—as proof that the people need not question their stewardship. The party has become so enamoured with its own achievements that it now sees any form of dissent as either ignorance or envy.

But politics is not accounting. It is not enough to build roads and bridges and then expect that citizens, like obedient shareholders, will nod in approval at year-end dividends. Governance is not mere expenditure. It is vision. It is values. And it is honesty about the things not yet done, especially when those things are fundamental.

And yet, on the most fundamental issue of all—our oil wealth—the PPP remains mute. The party that boasts about its superior planning, its PhDs and MBAs, its technocrats, cannot muster the courage to say what every Guyanese knows: the oil contract is a scandal and it is costing this country billions. But instead of confronting that reality, the PPP dances around it, offering half-truths and evasions.

It has been nearly five years since the PPP returned to office. In that time, the government has produced study after study, press conference after press conference, but not a single serious effort to alter the contract. What it has produced instead are cash grants and slogans—“One Guyana,” “Prosperity for All,” “Leave no one behind.” These are pleasant phrases, but they are no substitute for structural change.

The party appears to believe that because it is building and spending, it is governing well. But spending is easy when the coffers are full. And the coffers are full because of oil—not because of superior governance. Let us be honest: had ExxonMobil agreed to pay a fairer share, Guyana would today be awash in the kind of money that could revolutionize every sector, from education to healthcare. But because the contract is so lopsided, we receive crumbs, and are told to be grateful.

Meanwhile, a dangerous laziness is setting in within the government. The PPP assumes that because the opposition is weak, it need not try harder. It believes that because WIN is new, and APNU is fractured, it can coast to victory on cruise control. There is no urgency, no manifesto, no real engagement with voters beyond ribbon cuttings and press releases. But this is how parties lose their way. Not with one great blunder, but with a series of small evasions and large assumptions. The assumption that the people are satisfied. The assumption that the opposition is irrelevant. The assumption that power, once gained, is permanent.

History does not favour such arrogance.

The PPP must be reminded that an election is not a coronation. It is a contest. And to win it honestly, a party must present its vision, defend its record, and answer hard questions. It must not dismiss dissent as ignorance. It must not treat critique as betrayal. And it must not hide behind infrastructure while ignoring injustice.

The oil contract is not a minor issue. It is the single most important matter of economic justice in modern Guyanese history. And the fact that the ruling party refuses to renegotiate it—or even to explain why it won’t—is an abdication of responsibility. WIN, for all its naivety and amateurism, at least says plainly what needs to be said. APNU, muddled and meandering though it may be, has at least acknowledged that the issue exists. Only the PPP continues to act as though Guyana’s oil wealth is a technical matter best left to “experts.”

But it is not a technical issue. It is a moral one. And a political one. And if the government will not address it, then the people must. The PPP is not wrong to tout its successes. But it is deeply mistaken if it believes that those successes make it immune from criticism. The test of a government is not just whether it builds. It is whether it listens. Whether it adapts. Whether it has the humility to correct course when needed. The PPP still has time to produce a manifesto. Still has time to make clear where it stands on the Exxon contract. Still has time to prove that it values not only performance but principle.

But time, like oil, is not infinite.

And if the PPP continues to mistake applause for approval, it may one day wake up to find that the people it assumed were loyal were only patient. And that patience, like oil contracts, can expire.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

---

• New housing schemes, Peeping Tom, Politics, power, PPP

---