Everything is back to normal. The PNC is on the streets, and the government is in ‘buse-up’ mode. For that segment of the weary citizenry which has to go to work every day and feed children and find money for school books and pay the rent and meet the GPL charges and still survive till month-end, this latest face-off by the two political dinosaurs is an irrelevancy, and a dangerous one at that. And this is despite the fact that the current flurry of marching around the city is ostensibly to protest the rise in the cost of living. The real danger is that between the PNCR’s irresponsibility and the PPP/C’s appalling judgement, the situation has the potential to deteriorate without any of the major political players actually intending this consequence.
But to begin at the beginning. Exactly what the PNCR took to the streets for in the first place is not altogether clear, since they seemed to latch onto any topic that was in vogue at the time, including the ban on Channel 6, the cost of living, and, most mysteriously, Carifesta, which was founded by the late Pres-ident Burnham no less. Considering that President Jagdeo was under pressure on all fronts, no great action was required on the part of the main opposition; they just had to sit and wait, and say their piece in Parliament and elsewhere while the government floundered. As it is now they have made themselves the centrepiece of criticism, and the PPP/C can mount its favourite hobby-horse spouting its usual florid rhetoric – which is not to say that the PNCR has not had some florid rhetoric of its own to spout.
Exactly how the PNCR thought it would dissuade a significant segment of its own constituency from attending Carifesta is not clear; in a city notoriously lacking entertainment, music and dancing of a high standard would be too much of a temptation to resist. Be that as it may, it hardly does the Leader of the Opposition any credit that he would seek to make a major regional festival “unmanageable.” That is not the occasion or the issue on which to confront the government. One might have thought the party would have worked out that they cannot afford a fiasco involving the region which is blamed on them.
