Reflections… on the National Assembly

As your Eyewitness forages his way through all the sweets he’s being plied with from all directions – he doesn’t just have a “sweet tooth” but “32 sweet teeth!!” – he’s on his Divali-induced sugar high as he tries to tap out this piece!! So be patient, Dear Reader! Looking ahead, he figures with Pressie having to convene Parliament – which is him and the National Assembly – in less than two weeks he might as well talk a bit about the latter institution since its Opposition Leader-to-be Sanction Man is clearly operating in a (dense) fog of ignorance!!
It was SEVENTY TWO YEARS ago – 1953 when Daddy Sanction Man was a swaddling babe! – that we had the first sitting of the House of Assembly – after the April elections. Before then, there were colonial restrictions on who could run the country – and decide how government money was gonna be spent. In the beginning, we enslaved, Indigenous Peoples and indentured “natives” didn’t know what was good for ourselves. So the planters and merchants elected members of their clique to join officials sent out from the “Mother Country” to bear the “White man’s burden” and make such decisions!! Oh…the pressures!! No wonder they had to constantly fortify themselves with rum swizzles!!
Gradually – VERY gradually!! – the restrictions, like income, land ownership, literacy in English etc., were lifted and some of us natives could elect and run for a limited number of seats. The universal franchise was introduced for the 1953 elections – everyone over 21 years old could vote. Excepting incarcerated criminals and “imbeciles” – which might be how the Whites saw the rest of us before!! Most of them still do…just show up announced at their immigration counters – even with a visa – and you’ll see!!
Anyhow, the newly-formed PPP won 18 out of 24 seats – surprising even their leaders Jagan and Burnham!! Within months however, the arch-imperialist Churchill suspended the constitution and threw out the new government – ‘cause he said they were commies!! Never mind the PPP leaders screamed till they were blue in the face they weren’t!! Now in the present, we have a situation where – even though we’re supposed to be independent – the US has declared they have a duty to intervene if everything ain’t hunky dory in these neck of the woods!! The question on the minds of a whole lotta people is what will the US do if they object to Sanction Man fighting their about-to-be announced extradition order??
Has the order for covert operations by the CIA’s field agents in Guyana already been given to gather intel on Sanction Man’s palatial quarters??
Might we see a leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly “renditioned” by a team of Seals??

…on new BJDR Bridge
Even though they’d moved the new Bridge further upriver, your Eyewitness had noted folks were still calling the new bridge across the Demerara River, the “Demerara Harbour Bridge”. And wondered since docks were being built all the way past Timehri, whether the entire River was gonna be called a “harbour”. Anyhow, your Eyewitness is pleased we got back the Demerara River with the name Bharrat Jagdeo Demerara River Bridge!!
But there’s some history we shouldn’t forget. Back in 2015, after sole-sourcing an (astronomically expensive) design from some Dutch entity, the PNC’s Infrastructure Minister “Gold Bangle” Patterson promised he’d have a “lifting” Bridge from Houston to La Grange ready by 2018!! Well, as soon as the PPP got into office in late 2020 – with no bridge! – THEIR Infrastructure Minister, hit the ground running with a much more realistic plan.
And we now have the BJDR Suspension Bridge of which we can all be so proud!! And with AFC wiped out, Bangles Man is gone!!

…T&T’s Kamla
Reacting to Caricom’s virtue-signaling for the Caribbean to be left as a “Zone of Peace”, T&T’s Kamla came out swinging: “T&T Govt. once again categorically express its strong support for the ongoing military intervention of the US in the region”!!
Ouch!!