…for survival
Your Eyewitness returns to Raphael Trotman’s 1260-word novella-as-letter-to-the-press, “What comes after”, in which he attempts a statesmanlike pose by calling for “dialogue between the major stakeholders”. He should’ve taken a cue from a real-deal statesman Abraham Lincoln, whose “Gettysburg Address” clocked in at 272 words. And could’ve been shorter without rhetorical flourishes like “four score and seven years ago” rather than the more prosaic “47 years ago”!
But then Lincoln was known as “Honest Abe” while Trotman, whose hero is Forbes Burnham, is called “Treacherous Trotman” by those who’ve followed his serial betrayals as he tried to crawl up the political dung hill that’s the PNC. The AFC? Naah…that was just another con, funded by the Yanks – after he hit a wall named Corbin while slithering to succeed Hoyte! His heart always remained with the PNC – as was confirmed by Granger’s cryptic utterance to him: “Nassau”!
So it’s the height of cynicism for Trotman to say, “the difference between the two Leviathans is razor-thin, which means, that no side has a clear and commanding mandate to govern for all. This reality has not changed in over 50 years and is highly unlikely to, in the next five.” Wasn’t it HIS AFC that carved out an 11% chunk of swing voters in 2011? This heralded a new reality that with all groups now minorities, any party winning over 50% of the votes would have significant support across the board.
Wasn’t it this reality that catapulted the APNU/AFC coalition into power in 2015? And was declared so “inclusive” that the promised shared government with the PPP had become moot? If Trotman really wants to be seen as a statesman – and earn a seat at the table again – he should confess how he and his pal Ramjattan betrayed their idealistic supporters by supporting Granger’s attempted destruction of our fledgling multiracial democracy.
Then there’s Trotman’s blaming the new Ali Administration for the “ethnicisation” of the State. Wasn’t it Treacherous Trotman himself who betrayed his proclivity for ethnicisation when he chose one Chantelle Smith as an AFC MP over Gomattie Singh, who’d laboured in the trenches for AFC’s Essequibo votes? Or when the AFC put forward Nagamootoo for the Speaker in 2011 and Granger instead chose he, Trotman, for the position?
Or how about the 16 out of 17 Permanent Secretaries selected in 2015 being African Guyanese? And if those appointments and heads of departments and boards to replace PPP incumbents were all from the same ethnic group, shouldn’t Trotman have said something?
But this isn’t just selective amnesia: it’s an indication of the deep moral rottenness at the core of Trotman and his ilk like Granger.
…for epidermal brotherhood
Ever since the No Confidence Motion, one could be forgiven for wondering whether Lincoln Lewis is a trade unionist or a PNC executive. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a trade unionist being a member of a political party – after all, we’re all operating in a “political economy”! But if Lewis wants to represent a political party in the public sphere, shouldn’t he openly do so as an Executive, like the late Komal Chand? Or has PNC rejected him?
Anyhow, Lewis was at it again, this time to join Treacherous Trotman in dissecting President Ali’s invitation to the former Presidents – including Granger – for a luncheon engagement. Like Trotman, he saw this as bypassing and undermining the Opposition Leader – who just happens to be Granger’s hand-picked ex-GDF officer Harmon.
But why the linkage? Mightn’t this be a welcome evolution of our struggling democracy – to utilise the institutional memory of our living presidents? And save Ali from reinventing wheels?
Or is this “No country for old presidents”?
…on gun licences
What’s with all the enigmatic references to some “high AFC Executive” who was being bugged after it became public knowledge he was handing out gun licences for cash?
Is it because the fella can see in all directions?
