Guyana Observer News

The election is on and true colours are being shown

Monday, 16 August 2010

By Freddie Kissoon

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As we fast approach the 2011 national elections, people in and out of the territory are going to see the true colours of many Guyanese who will surprise us. Some wear their traditional tags all the time so we should not be surprised. The first name on the list is Rickey Singh. Two years ago, he described in his Chronicle column, Mr. Jagdeo’s style of governance as that of the maximum leader. Severely tongue-lashed by – you know who- for that remark, Mr. Singh hibernated from political assessments and devoted his Chronicle topics to regional affairs.

He would, from time to time, display his hypocrisy, when in those very columns, he would castigate serving CARICOM Heads for their poor democratic display as when he marked about the government’s manipulation of the press in Antigua but never a word about fascism in Guyana. With the impending election, Mr. Singh has returned to his servile occupation. His recent re-entry to political commentary is to look at the confusion that currently grips the opposition parties. There is no viewpoint on the degeneracy that has smothered the ruling party that will cause it to be defeated and possibly face prosecution in 2011. Singh is getting on to his eighties and that is a time when people reflect on who they are. I guess Singh will eventually come around to that. He ran away from a dictatorship in the seventies that has now been dwarfed by the man Singh refers to as practicing the maximum leader syndrome in Guyana.

Next is Harry Hergash. He left Guyana in the late sixties. He heads a group in Toronto named the Guyana- Canada Association. Writing in a Stabroek News corner with the name, “In the Diaspora,” Hergash did a two part series a month ago in which he dealt chiefly with the weaknesses of the opposition and proclaimed victory for the PPP next year. Both Singh and Hergash know fully well that if the serving PM in their respective countries (Barbados and Canada) has been accused of abuse by his wife and hid the fact from the nation that he was not legally married, then his political career would have come to abrupt end. It is this writer’s deeply held belief that in a majority of countries in the world, if the Head’s wife had accused him of what Ms. Varshnie Singh has indicted Mr. Jagdeo for, his party would be decapitated at the polls.

Mention must be made of Sir Ronald Sanders, who opined in his Kaieteur News column, the ruling party has an advantage because the economy has improved. It is virtually impossible to provide the statistics to prove that but Sanders is entitled to his opinion. Some opinions though must be quite embarrassing to those who make them. Here is an example. Attorney, Oscar Ramjeet (who lives in the Caribbean) in his Sunday KN column wrote the following yesterday; “It seems to me that Jagdeo is penetrating the racial barrier in Guyana, because he is very popular in Linden, Buxton and Georgetown where the masses are Afros and he does not tolerate racial divisions…”

And how does Oscar Ramjet know this? I read the KN and SN daily. I look at the private television newscasts. There is nothing published in the private media the past four years that indicates that Mr. Jagdeo is popular in African-dominated districts in Guyana. I know of nothing Mr. Jagdeo has done that would cause one to exclaim that Mr. Jagdeo is penetrating ethnic barricades. One can only assume that Ramjeet arrived at his conclusion based on what he reads in the state-owned media houses. The dimension of Mr. Ramjeeet’s viewpoint that is absolutely shocking is the Buxton scenario. What has Mr. Jagdeo done for Buxton the past seven years to make one conclude that Mr. Jagdeo is popular among Buxtonians?

It would be nice and encouraging if Sanders can offer us an analysis of the Guyanese scorecard that points to an improved economy the past ten years. And also if Ramjeet can enumerate the occasions on which Buxton and its residents were the recipients of presidential generosities. In the meantime, expect to see more from the Sanders, Singhs, Hergashes and Ramjeets of Guyana, who will offer their predictions. And why not? These gentlemen are entitled to their perspectives. Speaking for myself, I see it from entirely different lenses. If the opposition parties can get those thousands of South Georgetowners to register and vote, then the PPP will be defeated and the largest anti-corruption trial in the present world would have commenced.

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