As your Eyewitness pecks away at his keyboard at the fag end of this April Fool’s Day (yesterday to you now reading this!), he’s wondering if any agreement announced on the Opposition Consensus Candidate (OCC) is a hoax! But he realizes that these fellas – you noticed there ain’t no females? – have no sense of humour when it comes to politics. They’re all so deadly serious that they’re incapable of pulling anyone’s legs!! And that’s the point right there, why there ain’t gonna be consensus candidate: the candidates take themselves much too seriously.
Each of these fellas is certain he personally has what it takes to “save” Guyana from the clutches of the PPP – and that’s another problem, apart from the implied outsize egos! They’re all focusing on getting rid of the PPP, rather than finding common ground on what they’d do to build a better Guyana. If they’d focused on the latter, the common candidate would’ve long been found; since it would’ve been clear as to who might be more qualified to lead the nation on that specific path.
But the issue is as much what they HAVEN’T placed on the table as what they have! Rather than be accused of prejudging the issue, your Eyewitness will quote from an opposition-friendly paper that phrased the matter rather delicately: “Lustre was lost from the last coalition after supporters of the grouping were accused of attempting to rig the 2020 elections. The two sides have been buffeted by criticisms over this. However, the key stumbling block remains disagreement over the presidential candidate.”
That’s right, folks; in all of the negotiations between the PNC and the AFC on a new coalition, there’s been NO MENTION of the elephant in the (Guyanese) room: the Mingoing of the last elections’ results!! On this matter, they’re clearly joined at the hip, and have to march in lockstep!! Not even a whisper as to what happened to their copies of the SOPs in their possession – and which they insist can show they won the elections!!
Your Eyewitness assumes that this silence of the wolves ain’t so much about principle or honour (there’s NO principle or honour among thieves!!), but about whether they “hang together, or else they’re gonna be hung separately”!! But since their silence on the rigging attempt implies agreement, can’t they use this commonality to select their leader for the next elections??
Who among the contestants did more to facilitate that naked grab for power?? Since neither your Eyewitness nor the Guyanese public has knowledge of all that went on behind closed doors (or stained bedsheets!!), these fellas – and females – who attempted to do the dirty do know.
So now we have a tiebreaker device, can we have the candidate??
…maker
Back in 1987, Trump was credited with writing a book, “The art of the deal”. But according to then Random House head Howard Kaminsky, the original publisher, “Trump didn’t write a postcard for us!” A journalist, Tont Schwartz, was credited with being the “co-writer”, but also said Trump didn’t write any of the book, choosing only to remove a few critical mentions of business colleagues at the end. Well, whatever’s been said, we have Trump’s four years in the White House (2016-2020), and now two months of another four years in a repeat performance to judge his “deal making” skills.
Why this ought to be of interest to us in dear ole Mudland is if American fast food, as well as American lingo and the rest of American “culture” – Halloween, anyone? – have overwhelmed us in a couple of years, then Trump’s political dealmaking’s gonna do the same with our political practitioners.
As such, expect an intensification of “hardball” politics, rather than any “live and let live” variety!! Ouch!!!
