Guyanese used to be accused of being “politically precocious” by our WI brethren and sisters! We’d call that “forced ripe” – from picking unripened fruits and speeding up their ripening. They never tasted “right”!! In politics, of course, it meant that with our leftist politics that caused our constitution to be suspended and our Government (the PPP) to be ousted as far back as in 1953, we were trying to practise politics that hadn’t “ripened” naturally!
And we have continued with that “forced ripeness” ever since! We ejected the Queen as Head of State as far back as 1970, when Barbados, which also achieved independence in 1966 – didn’t take that plunge until this year – thirty-one years later!! It’s certainly not coincidental that they’re more advanced than us in so many ways!! In the life of a country – as much as with a person – you gotta “know yourself”, and act in accordance with your limitations.
Now, even though Burnham tried his darndest to control the Judiciary he inherited with its British thousand-year heritage, it’s to their credit that they GENERALLY held the line on maintaining the standards necessary to deliver justice. They didn’t allow Burnham to force ripe them! His solution was to then CHANGE the constitution when the courts didn’t rule the way he wanted them to!! And he could do this with impunity because he rigged elections to give himself a majority to change the entire Constitution if necessary!!
But in the opinion of the Special Prosecutor (SP) in the elections’ criminal fraud case against Mingo, Lowenfield and Myers, a test of the Judiciary’s maturity is looming. Now, to understand his point, we gotta appreciate the distinction between a case that’s tried “summarily” before a Magistrate and one that a Magistrate decides must be passed on to the High Court for a Judge to try it “indictably”. In the former, the Magistrate makes the judgment, while in the latter, a “jury of your peers” does the honours.
Now, the SP acknowledges that the elections’ fraud case is fraught with political implications. After all, the trio is accused of trying to cook the books to get the PNC into office illegally! In such a situation, a jury would inevitably have partisans of either party, who MAY turn a blind eye to the facts. Like when Burnham was grinding the country under his jackboots, Rodney made the same point when the dictator had a “political” case moved from Berbice to Georgetown!
Like Rodney, the SP’s telling the Magistrate to decide the case, since she’s an officer of the court sworn to uphold its (and her) professional standards!
Makes sense, doesn’t it? No need to “force ripe” such a critical decision.
…for questionable contracts
One well-intentioned – but obviously naive – overseas Guyanese wants the new PNC leadership to apologise to the Guyanese people for the Exxon contract, and commit themselves to renegotiating it!! The fella should remember what happened to the last chap who called for a PNC apology – Raphael Trotman. Trotman argued that if the PNC were to apologise for rigging elections since 1968, they MIGHT convince Guyanese across the divide they’d turned a new leaf. By then, they’d deployed the PNC-R; PNCR1G, and other gimmicks that failed abysmally. Trotman ended leaving the PNC to form the AFC!
Now, this fella wants the PNC to apologise – meaning Trotman must confess that he did something that wasn’t kosher up in Texas. In his defence, he’s already said that someone in Cabinet told him to do what he did. So, is he now willing to call a spade a spade?
And (excuse the mixed metaphor) let the chips fall where they may?
…for a militant Christmas
Some from the PNC camp are exhorting supporters not to spend big this Christmas. And if they HAVE to spend, do so from “their own”. Even when it comes to black pudding!
Spitting in the wind!!
