As you, dear readers, know, your Eyewitness follows politics (and cricket) like a bloodhound. After all, there’s no better blood sport than politics. And with the Aussies, cricket’s been trying its best to catch up!! But Jeez…there can be too much of a good thing! And with politics, this point was reached 12 days before Christmas. That partridge in a pear tree, anyone?
The spoilsport in all of this has been the PNC. Their last BIENNIAL Congress had been held in 2018. You get that? BIENNIAL. Meaning every TWO years. And though we know the PNC executives are mathematically challenged, you’d figure they could handle adding 2 to 2018 to arrive at 2020 – without going to the CCJ!! But okay…we know they were quite busy in 2020 holding back the tide after their attempted March 2nd elections’ rig. Surely, they had enough time, after Granger slunk away to pout at Pearl – having thrown in the towel on Aug 2nd!!
But no…they had to drag it out for a year!! Then, in September, promise to hold it at the end of November. Or LATEST Dec 13. That OUTSIDE limit was for a reason. The reason being that DECENT FOLKS WOULD BE GETTING READY TO CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS – less than two weeks away!!! Even the most hard-core PNC diehards understood there were some things in the universe you just don’t mess with. And right up there are making preparations for Christmas. Black cake, garlic pork and new carpets – used to be linoleum – window blinds and such like don’t suddenly drop like manna from heaven, for Chrissake!!!
So, when the PNC decided on Dec 11th for the Congress to elect new leaders, folks – and your Eyewitness – became resigned. After all, the disappearance of the PNC leader while the PPP was making deep inroads into the PNC base with their initiatives was getting beyond ridiculous. But to then postpone it to the 18th? What a bunch of Grinches trying to steal Christmas!! After the elections were finally over, your Eyewitness breathed a sigh of relief. He could now get on with Christmas preparations.
But he’d jumped the gun once again. Premature sighing has always been one of his downfalls. Too much an optimist. On the 5th day of Christmas, up comes the Court of Appeal to decide that they DID have jurisdiction to hear the appeal on the Elections Petition case which the Chief Justice had thrown out on procedural grounds!! Does the Court have any idea what this does to your Eyewitness, who has to take his mind off Christmas and mull over the meaning of “interlocutory” orders??
That two of them are ladies – presumable with Christmas consciousness – makes it worse!!
…now the AFC?
And desperate to make themselves relevant by any means necessary, up comes the AFC to “defend” the honour of the two justices of the Appellate Court. As alluded to above, the Appellate Court worked during what your Eyewitness had hoped would be their Christmas break (which it is to the rest of Guyana!) to rule on the Elections Petitions’ case. A PPP Minister – known for his premature verbal ejaculations – rather inelegantly expressed his disagreement with the majority decision by calling for that majority – who happen to be female – to be “defrocked”.
Now, apart from disturbing your Eyewitness’s Christmas mood with more political digressions, he wonders whether Ramjattan – who obviously crafted their press release (it reeks of his bile!) – believes that to be “defrocked” only refers to the female gender! Maybe he should be told discretely that all persons wearing gowns to signal their position – like members of the clergy and judiciary – could be “defrocked”.
And isn’t he being sexist? What’s gender got to do with it?
…for Norton
Your Eyewitness has a bit of gratuitous advice for Norton. He’s going to earn a lot of goodwill if, for the next two weeks, he just goes around hanging out with regular folks across the country.
Just chill!!
