Over the past two years, a sickening pattern has resurfaced. It sees the Government utilizing legitimate state agencies to intimidate, suppress, embarrass, and charge its political opponents with the aim of securing cheap political points ahead of the next General and Regional Elections.
It does so, too, in order to justify its existence and legitimacy, which are constantly under threat because of the continued and, no doubt, unprecedented levels of activism of the opposition Peoples Progressive Party within the halls of Parliament and among the general populace on a number of troubling as well as sensitive issues.
The APNU+AFC Government is also conscious of the fact that it has to live up to all of the promises it made to a change-hungry electorate during the 2011 and 2015 campaigns. It knows only too well that it is duty bound to “charge and jail” all of those PPP officials and public officers who were victims of the APNU+AFC’s diabolical plot to grab power in this country so that they, too, could enjoy the spoils of the Executive.
The thinking, therefore, is that the ministries of Legal Affairs, the Presidency and the Attorney General’s Office must devote all of their energies and resources towards the prosecution of those who have been identified as sacrificial lambs, or examples. They must put aside their traditional mandate and focus on achieving the desired outcome in these areas, in order to please the APNU+AFC constituencies whom they belief are still interested in witnessing the downfall of the PPP, as opposed to assessing their own advancement and wellbeing under the current Government.
And the Government’s plan is in full swing. It has already commissioned partisan State-audits, which were undertaken in every instance by personalities who despise the PPP because of their own personal experiences with that party. After all, their professional reputations were at stake, given their public commentaries and scholarly works on the PPP’s alleged mismanagement of state assets, lack of integrity, systemic racism, and misuse of the public purse while in office.
The Government has also retained the services of six “non-cooperative” special prosecutors, who are being paid millions of dollars to secure convictions in a number of SOCU cases which appear weak and baseless.
It has gone a step further, too, by spending millions more to recruit for the Legal Affairs Ministry the services of ministerial advisors who no doubt will be dealing with special cases in which the actions of the Government and State are being firmly challenged by the political opposition and the citizenry. This move is most interesting, given the fact that the Government has already recruited scores of official and unofficial advisors in almost every area under its remit. These officials are very connected to the Working People’s Alliance party, the AFC and the PNC; but little or nothing is being said about it.
The Government is also employing special mechanisms within the regions and at the local level to recruit party loyalists to serve throughout the local Government System, to combat the work and activism of the PPP as its plot to prosecute and persecute key politicians ripens.
After all, the coalition Government is concerned about securing its long term governance of the country, regardless of the avenues that will have to be taken. It is therefore willing to sacrifice the country’s economic bill of health in order to secure its political objectives and a victory over the PPP. It is not concerned about its legacy, or even the fact that it still does not appear to have any coherent and sensible plan to further improve the lives of the populace by engaging in a robust infrastructural and human development programme.
In short, this was the very same posture adopted by Forbes Burnham when he came to power in the 1970s and 1980s. He believed that power could be held eternally by driving fear into the minds of the people and dividing them ethnically. He believed that the military and public service were instruments which should, above all, pledge allegiance to the Executive, and be ready whenever the time came to prove its allegiance.
If the Government does not change its philosophical and ideological outlook, it will see its decline, and the populace will once again start to yearn for change. And no amount of name-change will be able to deliver a victory to Mr Granger’s party in 2020 because, for the first time, it would have had a track record that could be contrasted with that of the PPP side by side. This Government must learn that real and ultimate power belongs to the people, and resides solely with them.
