Dear Editor,
There is this two-pronged question that won’t go away: where are we today, and where are we going? I assure that, though important, I focus on neither COVID-19 nor oil nor the economy, nor those other pressing issues crying for prioritization. In a kernel, the question is about politics; more expansively, it is about leadership, statesmanship and, ultimately, the ship of state. For starters, there is this business about legitimacy. The opposition threw down its gauntlet, and the government picked up its breastplate. The latter said if there is no movement, then so it will go; the former’s response is no dice, and it will be so. This is Guyana style diplomacy, where the conciliatory baby is discarded with the bathwater. I detect communication characterized by reciprocal probing aggression. There is more than meets the eye on this. It is beyond the histrionics of a fiendish government, greater than the semantics of a freakish opposition. The losers cannot relinquish claims of ‘illegitimate’ for that would mean virtual (not online) surrender of elections petitions; the rulers cannot abandon hubris, since that masks its crisis of confidence. Regarding that, I discern a group that savors brinksmanship, even when it is known to be loaded with bluster. To skeptics, I give the last elections, with running to Uncles Sam and Greg, even the now departed Aunty Lily. Says much about the local ABC-infused testosterone.
Regarding the opposition, it was threatened with ostracism and pariah status; both are now self-inflicted. It has nothing to lose, making it incalculably dangerous. Especially when there is recognition that the invisible impregnable hand of America is against it; there are reservoirs of secrets retained by the veterans, of how impregnable was the party, when the Americans were in its corner. That was post 1960, this is pre-2025. Those are insurmountable odds, make much worse, when the well-known electoral arithmetic (2025 again) of Guyana is worked out and totaled. It is totally unfavorable. I urge reacquainting with the opening question, for this is where we are today, and where we are going. I forgot something: it will not be pretty next time around, for these reasons. This time last year, the air was abuzz with ‘free and fair’ meaning endless supremacy for the PPP, and stark opposite reality for the PNC. It is a premonition for peril. Think Haiti. Because, if there are no demographic prospects, then the anarchic will have to take over. It is that or more frustrating, seething submission. Such are the choices from today. It would have been constructive if the new PPP government could have stirred itself to move from politics to governance, but its leaders will have none of that stuff. In some manner, campaigning and electioneering have not stopped, which translates to propagandizing and polarizing, since nothing has changed but the pages of the calendar. I foresee no material change, as challenging Guyanese Rubicon(s) must be crossed. They will. It is where we are, to where we go.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
