PPP’s fetid breath: democracy’s death

Apr 28, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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(Kaieteur News) – It has been a war.  The PPP’s relentless efforts at dismantling and destroying democracy in Guyana.  Institutions and organs, architecture and machinery, weakened brick by brick, until they are either shadows of themselves, or collapse under the weight of accumulated rot.  Pontius Pilate famously asked what is truth?  Ali, Jagdeo, Phillips, Nandlall say there’s only one… (THEIRS!).  There can be no different positions.  No trusted avenues of resolution.  No credible checks and balances; none trying too strenuously, none for personal honour.  No safe harbour for upstarts, undesirables, parasites.  The undefeated carveout their own ground, constantly reaching higher.  A deceived, misled nation sways, then crumbles under cyber barrages.  For total control, State power is weaponised to bludgeon Guyanese who refuse to bow.  In Guyana, democracy is dead.

Fact One: be a contrarian and become a marked man.  State media isn’t an asset, it’s a backstabbing assassin.  Have a concern, a situation, a problem – try reporting to a commander. The Guyana Police Force serve as the PPP Govt’s crematorium.  From dust to dust; anxieties burned and scattered to the winds. This is what happened to democracy in Guyana under the PPP.  Anil Nandlall can celebrate the rule of law, and no one is above the law, and there is the law writ raw: wounded, unprotected citizens.  One need not be PNC or WIN.  One unacceptable word, one honest posture, and the PPP institutionalised army declares war.  Public money weaponised against the public.  Social media marshalled, inflamed.  Denials.  Deceptions.  Deflections.  Distancing.  Diminishing.  Damaging.  Destroying.  When the first four of those seven deadly sins fail to do the required PPP job, supposedly unsponsored and unowned snipers’ takeover.  Laws don’t apply.  The police don’t interfere.  The judiciary licks its chops, impatient to deliver its own kicks.

Fact Two: there’s access to information, pursuant to law.  Try accessing.  There’s a constitutionally mandated Audit Office.  Matters got murky, tangled, between Freedom House, State House, and Audit House.  What isn’t lost in mixing, is watered down, develops arthritis.  Guyana’s genius scientist, Bharrat Jagdeo perfected his all-purpose response: no laws broken.  Even when laws exist, are broken, do the police intervene and enforce?  Ask Nandlall.  Share details of those the PPP victimised and criminalised, and he is neither seen nor heard afterwards.

Fact Three: in Guyana’s democracy, citizens can protest, but must do so from afar.  Hundreds of yards from parliament, and distant from the Office of the President.  Placards displayed.  Voices raised.  Who hears?  Who cares?  Stabroek News and Kaieteur News get State ads.  There’s no basis to complain, no trickery or calumny to expose.  Try collecting ad revenue.  I label that constructive cessation of ads, sabotaging of independent thinking by not-so-nuanced means (not one ad withheld).

Fact Four: ministers and leaders are so visible in houses of worship that no Guyanese speak of Church-State separation.  Ushers are too busy identifying who are politicians, who are praying.  Some religious leaders reciprocate.  Out with the inspirational (Jesus, Krishna, Mohamed).  In with the enriching: Ali, Jagdeo, Ashni.  Hooray for ‘excellence in leadership, exemplary unifiers.’  When spiritual men suck sewage to sell themselves, what separation, what differentiating standard?  For what is democracy, if not freedom from fear, and standing boldly before pulpit or before president?  When speaking.  Associating.  Reporting.  Complaining.  Writing.  Advocating.  For truth and justice.  For peace and what’s clean.  Not Ali’s cleanup campaigns.  Not Nandlall’s sophistries.  Not Jagdeo’s secrets.  Not Singh’s convolutions.  Not women ministers’ frailties and farces when failures flood.

Fact Five: more about Guyana’s wealth may be heard in the House of Commons than in Guyana’s National Assembly.  The Speaker’s mind freezes; ears clog; his decisions pared down to one word: NO!  Two: Not here!  Three: No such business.  Four: Not from that side.  An already dead democracy incinerated again.  If not in parliament, not on the parapet, not through political channels, then where, pubs and penitentiaries?

Fact Six: Guyana’s largest demographic is its younger, vibrant, citizens.  Where is intellectual foment from UG thousands?  What about warriors for democracy, free thinking?  Guyana’s most persistent searchers for kernels of truth, sleuths for good governance, and voices for clean leadership are a handful of limping, greying, quavering, geriatrics.  The few protesting elderly walk-on; the many youthful live in mortal dread.  One wrong move; a PPP-wrecked future.  When the blood is thin, racing, and the young has no pulse, whither democracy?  The next generation to carry democracy’s flag high?  Democracy dies in Guyana.

Stripped.  Flogged.  Starved.  Bled.  Dead.  The PPP’s signature gift to Guyana and Guyanese is the death of democracy, through the destruction of all that bound it.  Police.  Media.  Judiciary.  Audits.  Sanctuaries.  Parliament.  All anemic.  All collapsed.  All dead.  Buried by the 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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• Ali, Democracy, GHK Lall, Jagdeo, PPP

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