Our local version of “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” advises “when dog learn fuh suck egg, dey cyaan stop”!! If you went to college, they warn you about the “hysteresis of institutional memory” – the lag to change behaviour, even when you know circumstances have changed! And that’s really the challenge of the PNC – they just can’t help shooting themselves in the foot, because certain habits are so ingrained! Your Eyewitness is forced to return to this theme again and again, like a broken record. Incidentally, do you young’uns know that “broken record” has nothing to do with achievements – and refers to a spinning piece of vinyl that spewed out music??
But back to the PNC – where MP Anette Ferguson just criticised the party’s Georgetown District internal leadership elections. Pointing to a welter of anomalies, ranging from the disenfranchisement of Roysdale Forde, SC, to different figures on the official number of delegates, to not checking the authenticity of purported delegates’ “identities”, she demanded that it’s “time for fairness, honesty, democracy”!! Imagine that!! A member of the PNC demanding “fairness, honesty, democracy”!! That’s like a papa leopard demanding his mate deliver a baby with no spots!! Just can’t happen, can it??
All it does is emphasise that Ferguson didn’t cut her teeth in the PNC, but in the army, where she must’ve caught Lil Joe’s eye when Granger demanded that squaddies take over the running of the country – including the PNC. She’s young, and doesn’t have the institutional memory that rigging elections – inside or out of the party – is as PNC as the Palm Tree!! As your Eyewitness had pointed out a while ago, even before the formation of the PNC, its precursor was stricken with “electile dysfunction”!!
It’s a truism that, until a thing is named, we might be affected by “it”, we may be suffering from “it”, but bereft of a name that points to (and identifies) its nature, we really can’t analyse it to deal with those consequences. It’s just a nebulous, niggling worry that’s there in the back of the mind. The label “electile dysfunction” tags the PNC’s behaviour as a pathological condition when it comes to elections. It’s a conditioned Pavlovian reflex induced after so many riggings and manipulations – starting from Burnham’s attempt to oust Cheddi as PPP leader at the Metropole Cinema in 1954!!
So, Patterson’s demanding a recount?? Or will he be filing a petition at the High Court? If Roysdale wuzn’t allowed to vote, your Eyewitness is sure he’ll plead his case!! Or will he swallow hard like Norton did when Granger was elected as Party Leader in 2011 – amidst all kinds of skullduggery??
Electile Dysfunction is a terrible disorder!!
…in Venezuela??
Here we go again!! The US Government has OK’d Chevron possibly kicking off production in the projects it was involved with in conjunction with Venezuela’s PDVSA – if Maduro will resume discussions in Mexico on holding “free and fair” elections next year!! The release by the Americans of six criminal prisoners – including some of Maduro’s relatives – was an opening gambit. Now, don’t assume this is all because of the energy crunch precipitated by the sanctions on Russian oil. Remember these negotiations were well advanced two years ago? But broke off when Maduro demanded his money launderer be released??
So where does this leave us?? There are now 7 million Venezuelans who’ve fled their homeland since 2015 – many of them are here. This is a ticking time bomb that must be addressed. More than ever, the US now sees the strategic importance of controlling Venezuelan oil – the largest reserves in the world. The coming (freezing) winter of discontent in Europe emphasises this.
Guyana could get lost in the shuffle without Exxon!!
