…and government of the people
Everyone knows “politics is dirty”. But “dirty” comes in all colours and it’s particularly irking when the colour green gets dragged in the mud as was done by Granger after he became President in 2015. Green, after all, is the colour that’s associated with a clean environment the world over. So imagine the Sanctimonious Gangster’s temerity to drag the colour green into Guyana’s gutter politics. It had to be deliberate since it’s the colour of slime found in gutters!!
Your Eyewitness, of course, is referring to Granger painting the Office of the President – THE ENTIRE BUILDING!! – from its historic white to slime green!! The National Trust protested to no avail! Obviously, it had nothing to do with the environment and keeping it pristine, but everything to do with slime-green being the colour of the PNC from its formation in 1958. As soon as they slid into office, they went on a painting binge. During their inauguration and the Independence celebrations, citizens were shocked to witness the extent to which slime-green and yellow became the leitmotif of every event. The yellow was quickly dropped – but Ramjattan and crew never realised it was a harbinger of their future!
But to make the point even stronger where they were coming from with their slime-green, the PNC planted slime-green palm trees in a “beautification” programme across the country. The message that Guyana was “PNC territory” was moved from the subliminal and symbolic to the concrete. While some might’ve missed that green was their colour – everyone knows the palm tree is the PNC’s symbol. And the palm tree is planted in the ground to take root!
But painting the Ministry of the Presidency Building green took this “PNCing” to a whole new level – the very lowest possible level. After all, even though the President is elected by one section of the society, he’s supposed to be President of ALL Guyana. To have painted the building in which his office was housed with the slime-green of the PNC was to signal that his presidency was only for that section that placed their X’s for him. And he showed that in spades after the election.
While Burnham had signalled his desire to co-opt the Judiciary back in the day when he flew the PNC’s flag over the Court of Appeal, and rigged the elections to remain in office, he was never this blatant about his partisanship.
The PPP has been in office for almost six months, during which time they’ve performatively demonstrated that they’re governing for all the people. It’s about time they also convey this symbolically by repainting the Office of the President back to white.
Not red or yellow!!
…and the Opposition
When the PPP won the elections of 1992, their supporters called for justice to be done after the humiliations, expropriations, and appropriations they and the country had suffered for 28 years. But Cheddi Jagan insisted there’d be “no recriminations; no revenge” against the PNC. So, folks like Robert Corbin, for instance, were never prosecuted and sent to jail over his “electricity barge” scandal.
But in 2015, from the word go the PNC launched “forensic audits” then harassed and embarrassed the departed PPP officials by threatening prosecution and jail if they found the slightest infraction. Of course, they weren’t able to obtain a single conviction. Well, here we are with the PPP not even launching a sustained audit across the board and yet so many scandals have been unearthed it makes a citizen sick to the stomach.
This Eyewitness doesn’t believe that David Patterson is an outlier. He’s convinced that what’s been stumbled over is just the tip of the iceberg.
Launch forensic audits of every Government department!!
…and greed
We were taught in Sunday School the seven deadly sins are greed, pride, wrath, envy, lust and gluttony. We see them all on display in the David Patterson sleazy case unfolding inexorably.
Bling, denial, threatening lawsuits, and dinners at Gravity!!
