…on the race front
The dust is beginning to settle in the dust-up over, and at Red House. So, what’s emerging from the haze? Clarity on the political alignments most thought had shifted during the last elections. APNU is conceding it’s really the PNC and really doesn’t need the “small parties” fig leaf any longer. The job’s been done: the PNC successfully hid its stripes when it counted and has decided it’s not worth the effort any longer.
“Parties” like NFA and GAP really never mattered – it was the WPA that was the initial catch sought – and finally hooked. The challenge from that party in its core constituency had stuck in the PNC’s craw since the success of Rodney in the 1970’s. With his sense of history, Granger knew the WPA and its heretical few had to be brought back into the fold. That a grounded member of the core WPA ideologues like Tacuma Ogunseye could be defending the PNC from the redoubt of the Office of the President – which had advised the WPA to “make their wills” – says it all.
The remnants of the WPA wasn’t important for their numbers, but for the moral high ground they’d seized as far back as when Rodney asked African Guyanese of Georgetown to reflect on what it meant for Burnham to assume they’d condemn an innocent Indian man – Arnold Rampersaud – just because they were Africans. WPA’s support confirms the PNC as the sole representative of African Guyanese – just as Burnham was when he was permitted to rig elections. “It’s us or them”.
And we now get to the AFC – which could claim with a straight face at the last elections they’d coalesced with APNU and not “PNC”. They’re definitely more than “dead meat” after the humiliating treatment of the institution dedicated to preserving the memory of Dr Cheddi Jagan. Moses Nagamootoo, who’d brought over his 11 per cent Berbice Indian support to the PNC-in-APNU – has obsessively declared that his entire 50-year political career was as a “Jaganite”. Yet, he was the one who actually drafted the lease for the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre!!
Your Eyewitness knows Nagamootoo, poor fellow, was never permitted to chair Cabinet meetings – but he’s still allowed to sit-in, nuh? So, was he there when the Cabinet declared war against the memory of Jagan? Did he defend the lease he drafted when Basil Williams claimed it had more defects than the Skeldon Factory?
Your Eyewitness hopes the AFC understands now that the PNC has the full support of its constituency, it doesn’t need Nagamootoo’s 11 per cent – or whatever’s left of it.
The PNC now has a license to rig. “If not us, them?”
…in legal circles
In the clearing of the haze mentioned above, matters arising over in the judicial branch of the Government are also becoming more clearly defined. If the PNC’s to have its way – to rule by any means necessary – then, as it found out in its first incarnation under the Founder Leader, it’ll have to ensure the Judiciary doesn’t insist on humbug-like “rule of law” and suchlike.
Like the Chief Justice (ag) telling AG Basil Williams that even if he’s now a “Senior Counsel”, the Executive Branch isn’t the arbiter of the law. And Ministry of the Presidency’s goons can’t just throw the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre into the street.
So, we can now understand the story in the Chronic that bootstraps on a single letter about the Chancellor of the Judiciary reaching 65 years of age, to claim “…concerns raised over whether he will try to prolong stay”. If he does stay, the PNC would have to take a chance he might nix their upcoming challenge to Jagdeo running again for the Presidency.
Can’t have that, can they?
…from Chronic
After a manful attempt to retain a shred of “impartiality”, looks like the Chronic’s given up.
Their end-of-year headline on the Red House lease fiasco, “NOT VALID” was the white towel.
