Editorial

It was during the late 1980s, in an interview on one of the BBC Radio international current affairs programmes that the former USA Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, whilst dissecting some developing international crisis, declared, “… that power was the ultimate aphrodisiac…”       What is it about power that drives persons to pursue it with total reckless abandon?

Last Wednesday, with a bluntness that some may regard as diplomatically indelicate, Common-wealth Secretary General, Baroness Patricia Scotland asserted that in the midst of the various COVID-19 emergencies that have arisen here in the Caribbean, we can expect the occurrence of instances of unwholesome opportunism amongst those in our midst whose sensitivities are finely tuned to recognize and extract exploitative advantage from circumstances of  challenge and tragedy. 

One by one the masks are coming off. First, it was the District Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo who tried to fix the election in favour of APNU+AFC by casting aside Statements of Poll and inflating and deflating figures according to his whims.

Creating storms in teacups seems to have become a speciality of APNU+AFC in recent times. 

“A dead man who never caused others to die seldom rates a statue,” wrote the poet W.H.

Tomorrow will mark forty years since the assassination of Dr Walter Rodney in a car parked outside the Georgetown prison.

When the results of the General and Regional Elections are finally announced at the culmination of the processes following the recount of votes, hopefully in the very near future, it will be difficult, if not impossible to put behind us all of the shenanigans that delayed and disrupted what should have been a smooth process.

Yesterday, a private charter carrying twenty-five West Indian cricketers arrived in Manchester for the start of their 2020 Tour of England.

On June 1, it was announced that the City Mall at  Camp and Regent streets had been re-opened for business ahead of the June 3 expiration of the national COVID-19 measures.

True to form, Guyana’s caretaker President since December 21st 2018 has offered his own jaundiced version of the recount of votes from the March 2nd general elections.

The one examination which all 11-12 year-olds across the length and breadth of Guyana have to sit is the National Grade Six Assessment.

Donald Trump began his presidency with a promise to put “America first.”

Every time we think we may have taken a step forward in the interminable elections saga, we discover that is probably an illusion.

The asphyxiation of George Floyd by a police officer in Minnesota, USA late last month, compounded by the almost laissez faire attitude of the authorities towards the crime immediately after, was the proverbial straw that set in motion the current widespread protests against injustice and racism in the United States and other parts of the world.

The cream of the crop of stand-up comedians are very good at finding humour in most everyday situations and providing us with laughter and relaxation.

Sooner rather than later, a reliable assessment of the impact which the twin factors of the post-March 2 general elections imbroglio and the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic have had on the national mindset and (for the purpose of this editorial) on particular aspects of the country’s economy will have to be forthcoming.

As the National Recount of votes moves inexorably to its end, the unfounded complaints of the incumbent APNU+AFC have become shriller.

 Liberal democracies depend, in the words of one reviewer, on a ‘collective trust in facts.’ 

Earlier this week Twitter users identified a woman in New York who falsely reported a threat on a 9-1-1 call.

While Guyana still labours to arrive at an election result which should have been declared two months ago but which the incumbent coalition is going to great lengths to try and amend, Suriname went to the polls on May 25, and the outcome is already clear.