Dear Editor,
If the editorial in the Sunday Stabroek of January 5 is to be taken as an indication of what is to come in 2014 from that newspaper, then the PPP has to take note and put its foot down now.
The editorial came out firing on all cylinders. It can be considered the most scandalous and brazen attack on the PPP, the PPP/C Government and President Donald Ramotar at the beginning of 2014.
But lest there be any misunderstanding, let it be made quite clear that attacks on the PPP from any quarter whether by racists, demagogues, schiesters, opportunists, charlatans, OSBs and
SPs, the elite of certain privileged classes and social strata are nothing new. Sections of the media are no exception.
January 1, 2014 marked sixty-four years since the establishment of the PPP. Throughout these years the PPP has had to bear the brunt of attacks on all fronts. No other political party in Guyana in or out of government has experienced such trials and travails as the PPP, but at the end of the day the party emerged from every difficult situation stronger and more resolute. It re-invented itself, modernized its strategy and tactics and never failed to rise to the occasion.
The objectives of those who attack us is to project the PPP as an enemy of the people, as racists favouring Indo-Guyanese and discriminating against Afro-Guyanese. They perceive us as backward and lacking intellect, inept and anything and everything else that would portray the party as unfit to govern this country.
And this is not only in respect of the party’s leadership; such shibboleths if not scorn is assigned to the entire membership, supporters and sympathisers of the PPP.
It is a most shameful and disgraceful display of arrogance and disdain put on by a newspaper which is daily at work to project itself as a paragon of virtue and whose editors have convinced themselves that they know it all and have all the answers to the country and people’s problems.
Yet in a most una-shamed fashion with every passing day they sink wittingly or unwittingly into the cesspool of gutter and sensational journalism and opposition politicking making no secret of their political bias and unbalanced editorial policy.
The PPP does not look to the Stabroek News or any other media house for plaudits, hurrays or editorial assessments of its performance, stellar or non-stellar. The PPP serves the Guyanese people who mandated it to so do.
The Stabroek News like any other media house is free to publish, print and express its opinion on the performance of government, but when balanced, fair and objective reporting and editorials are thrown out of the window and replaced with hard-nosed and entrenched ideological and political prejudices that blur the facts and true and objective reporting we have a situation where the credibility of that media house is exposed for all to see.
Every five years, notwithstanding all out efforts by the Stabroek News to influence and discourage the electorate from voting for the PPP/C, the people, in passing judgement on the PPP/C’s performance in government and its ability to deliver the goods and services would nevertheless vote to put the PPP/C back in government.
This has been the trend since 1992, yet totally oblivious to and unconcerned with this popular vote of confidence in the PPP/C administration, the Stabroek News with every passing year in a most dishonourable, mocking and disrespectful manner, would pummel PPP members, supporters and sympathisers for voting for the wrong party, encouraging them to look elsewhere and to stop voting race as if it were not the sovereign right of the people to decide who they should vote for.
The PPP has said time and again that it does not share the view that politics in Guyana is cast in rigid racial/ethnic compartments and that allegiances would not change.
Many years ago, Cheddi Jagan had pointed out: “It is this false assumption that led to the prediction that we would not win a majority at the 1992 elections.
Had race/ethnicity been the only factor, the PPP/Civic could not have polled 54 per cent of the votes (actually a larger percentage had there not been so many irregularities committed by the PNC).”
Call it arrogance or whatever you wish, the Stabroek News is in no position to lecture the PPP about its relationship with either the Office of the President or the Office of the President’s relationship with Freedom House.
Nor is its interest in the welfare of the PPP welcomed. Its brazen attempt to drive a wedge between the President and his party comrades is not new. A similar mischievous overture was made soon after Bharrat Jagdeo was elected President of the Republic. Donald Ramotar belongs to the PPP.
He was elected by the supporters of the PPP/C. He is President of a PPP/C administration. He is President for all Guyanese and not a privileged few.
Yours faithfully,
Clement J Rohee
General-Secretary
People’s Progressive
Party
