An insult to our intelligence

May 14, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – We are told that the reason regular government press conferences have disappeared is because the administration has moved from “campaign mode” into “implementation mode.” In other words, governing has apparently become too demanding an occupation to permit the inconvenience of accountability.

This explanation, now being ladled out to the public, would be comic were it not so offensively contemptuous. One waits in vain for the punchline.

For this is rather like a captain explaining that he cannot report on the voyage because he is too busy steering the ship. The very act of governing — spending public money, awarding contracts, implementing policies, negotiating agreements, exercising power — is precisely why governments in democracies hold press conferences.

The press briefing is one of the mechanisms by which the governed are permitted to interrogate the rulers. But in Guyana, access to ministers has become as difficult as making an appointment to see the President. On top of that, certain sections of the media are treated with open irritation bordering on hostility. State advertising revenues are withheld with the pettiness of a boss who withholds overtime because he does not like the shoes of his staff.

Meanwhile ministers somehow discover ample time to appear on podcasts. The President participates in carefully curated teatime interviews. This is the PPPC’s idea of press freedom, something that they copied from the APNU+AFC during the period 2015 to 2020.

Interestingly, despite being too busy to host regular press conferences with the full media corps, time was found to publicly lambaste the Stabroek News as “anti-government.” Evidently there exists sufficient space in the governmental diary for denunciation, selective engagement, and propaganda management — but none for standing before the full media corps and answering unscripted questions.

And what of the post-Cabinet press briefings? Has the Republic suddenly exhausted its supply of competent officials? Are there no public servants capable of performing the role once executed by Dr. Roger Luncheon? Was he that indispensable?

We now inhabit a bureaucracy swollen with super-salaried officials, strategic communications advisers, consultants, advisers and all manner of strange designations. Yet apparently none can be trusted to stand behind a lectern after Cabinet meetings and explain government decisions to the taxpayers financing their salaries.

The excuse is preposterous in the strictest dictionary sense. It is so manifestly ridiculous that it insults the intelligence of anyone expected to believe it.

What makes the situation even more grotesque is the growing impression that the country is now being administered worse than a cake shop.

Every important decision appears to emerge from through a process in which one man kneads the dough, another applies the frosting, and the rest stand around clutching aprons, nodding vigorously at every instruction as though governance itself were a recipe for sponge cake.

Meanwhile the public is expected to believe this is collective governance rather than a political bakery in which democratic institutions are reduced to little more than delivery boys carrying orders already prepared elsewhere. And the media has been complaining about lack of access.

But the media itself cannot entirely escape indictment. Starved and desperate for information, sections of the press last year and the year before dutifully trooped to Freedom House for weekly briefings hosted by the General Secretary of the ruling party — gatherings at which government business was discussed with the lines between party and State were indistinguishable. It was a spectacle worthy of a banana republic.

A democratic press corps cannot continue participating in this charade. If government business is to be discussed, then let it be discussed at official government press conferences open to the entire media. The press must stop attending press conference hosted by the ruling party if government business is discussed there. By attending these sessions, the press is rewarding the abuse of incumbency and encouraging the doctrine of party paramountcy.

And while the subject of unhealthy political habits is under review, perhaps someone might discreetly remind ministers that the Vice President is not a Maharaja. He is a minister among equals within a constitutional government, not a viceroy deserving of public genuflection. As a Minister among equals, he is not entitled to special welcomes reserved for a Head-of-State.

Such theatrical elevations of officeholders may appear harmless. It may at times appear as political pageantry complete with flattery and choreographed reverence. But it points to a governing culture increasingly uncomfortable with scrutiny by the independent press, and increasingly enamoured instead with deference to and the concentration of authority in a few exalted personalities.

For the public, the implications are grim. Democracy cannot survive in a system in which power speaks only to its admirers and treats scrutiny as insolence. Governments unwilling to face questions eventually cease listening.

(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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• campaign mode, insult, intelligence, Peeping Tom

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