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After elections
Kaieteur News – The PPPC Government now has a new two-word manifesto: after elections. Many of the areas that it neglected, many of the issues that its leaders refuse to do something to fix, those are what the government’s chief policymaker, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has said will now be addressed. Access to information is the latest “after elections” commitment from the vice president. For over five years, the government buried its head in the sand, ducked major issues, but is now promising that those ways will be changed after elections.
The electricity-plagued sector, as spearheaded by the GPL, Inc., will have a management shakeup after elections. The US$2B Wales gas-to-energy project that promises significant electricity relief, will be revealed to the people paying for it, but only after elections. The Access to Information law took effect in 2011, but the government still stifles information flow to the people on how their business is being conducted. Suddenly, Jagdeo has developed a sense that it is time to ease up on the information bottlenecks at the Office of the Commissioner of Information. After elections, there will be more information made available.
For approximately six months, small protests first occurred in front of the Office of the Commissioner of Information, and then moved to the Office of the President. The commissioner decided on silence as his best response, and when President Ali was written to, his response was not only unpresidential, but of someone uncertain of his powers. According to the president, ‘he doesn’t tell the commissioner how to do his work.’ But now the vice-president is going on record that there will be access to information, pursuant to provisions in the law, but until after elections. This is how one group of politicians after another has taken Guyanese for a ride.
Government after government, leaders in a long string, make bright promises during election campaigns, and yet Guyanese are struggling for standards that other countries take for granted, including some in the region. A steady supply of affordable and reliable electricity is something that citizens would love to have. But various governments have not done much in terms of improvement. They cannot point to locals and say, this and this has been done, with progress made. Billions have been spent, decades have passed, and families and businesses are still living in blackouts. More recently, when blackouts occur, they do so in rolling waves within a 24-hour span. Yet, Guyanese are hearing again about what is planned for the GPL after elections, what they can expect.
In another country, leaders and governments would have been kicked out of office a long time ago, and only for their failures with a cheap and dependable supply of electricity to the nation. In Guyana, the opposite flourishes, where the more governments fail, the more they are returned to power, and the more that leaders repeat their deceptions, the more they are rewarded to continue with their farces about electricity, the Wales gas-to-shore project, and access to information, among many issues of like importance. After elections, and if we get in (or return) to office, is the new con game that politicians are playing with citizens. The PPPC Government spent most of its time scheming on how to rip-off citizens through their national budgets, while starving half of the population. Now it has a solution for every problem, and the icing on the cake is that citizens are told that it is for their benefit. President Ali and Vice Jagdeo became very skilled at pretending to be tone deaf since 2020, with little time set aside for the harsh conditions of citizens fueled by a crippling cost-of-living environment. Now their new games are listening respectfully and telling citizens what is pleasing to their ears. Leaders in both the government and opposition were touchy and careful about which subjects could be raised with them. Two weeks before elections, voters can’t get them to stop talking about how much they are going to spend on the people after elections. After elections is the new catchphrase: promise anything to win the elections. After that, Guyanese would be back in a bigger hole that their overnight political friends are digging for them.
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