My position in writing a weekly column is not to defend this regime; that is the role of the tabloids and the state-run media.
I believe, however, in the engagement of constructive criticism with the intention of moving Guyana forward. In this regard, I criticize this regime for not listening attentively to what the average person is saying about its unscuttled and dismal performance since it slipped into power two years ago with a razor-thin majority.
I advise that there should be no slow march to the aforesaid concern, but there should be swift and immediate action.
I am not alone in this observation. Large sections of Guyana’s population, including the extremists and propagandists who have helped to put the regime in power, are unhappy with the current sad state of affairs, and are concerned about their future. They hear continuous unfulfilled promises and schmoozing. They recognize concealed schisms within the coalition. They see and feel a steady decline in agriculture, in trade and in commerce. They see markets for rice and logs have dried up, while taxes have increased. They are waiting to vote the regime out of power in 2020. But they are nervously concerned about rigging of the election, another beast of burden creeping furtively on the Guyanese psyche. They have become emotionally bankrupted.
Last year, in this same space, I analyzed the regime’s first year in office and said this: “I believe the 100 days manifesto from the current regime is the wickedest propaganda pamphlet dished out to Guyanese in the history of Guyana. No other government in Guyana and the English-speaking Caribbean has ever lied so blatantly and flippantly to the people in the first year in power than the current coalition regime. If the coalition can meet 15 per cent of what is written in the manifesto in 1000, not 100 days, I would be floored”. My position has not changed. Actually, and like so many others, I am still waiting for the promised “good life” to happen; with the hope that politicians rinse themselves from, and rise above, this national embarrassment and mental embezzlement; come clean, and deliver.
There is a growing consensus among households — and even to distant observers — that the current regime is incompetent, self-centred, intellectually lazy, visionless, corrupt, and party paramountcy-influenced. This is not the time to laugh and giggle, but to think seriously about what image this regime skirts to the public. Have you ever listened to the President’s weekly “Press” meeting, The Public Interest? Apart from the President appearing and operating on calm, cool and collective ethos, you would think — after listening to the press meeting — that Guyana is the greatest country in the region. The reporters are mainly from the coalition supporters, and they have scripted questions.
The peddled thought that this regime is doing well is a misrepresentation, because its actions, on close scrutiny, reveal that it continues to under-perform. There has not been any meaningful investment other than the reliance on oil finds; and according to public information, details on what, when and who would benefit from oil revenues are still shrouded in secrecy. Apart from occasional splashy public announcements, the regime has not offered any concrete plan and program to instill confidence in the Guyanese people on how oil revenues would make Guyana a better country.
Sound political interventions, coupled with will and capacity that are so needed to transform society, are seriously missing. What is noticeable instead is corruption, which has become a daily staple in the news.
One does not have to be politically or psychologically savvy to understand why this regime and country is trapped in a cesspool of problems. I do not have the time to single out the sociopaths within this regime, but declare that a majority of the current leaders in Government were moulded under one of the most notorious dictatorships in the Caribbean. Their so-called larger-than-life political personality, according to some, was nourished and nurtured during the period when Guyana sure felt like Hell on Earth. Even those in the then opposition — now undisputed heroes within the coalition regime — have displayed sociopathic logical behaviours, having once so much hate for the PNC (my generation was caught in this) to now displaying unswerving love for the PNC. Obviously, any normal individual would prefer love over loathe, but when these politically-led individuals show that vital missing seventh sense – conscience — then we are naturally and nationally concerned what their next move would be. We have already seen a lack of conscience towards agriculture, taxes, and so on. How to transform guiltless, non-violent political behaviour is beyond the scope of this column, but the high incidences of sociopathy from the regime are simply unbearable. I would say more than 50 percent of the Guyanese public is clinically traumatized by the regime’s tyrannical policies.
Arguably, the current crop of politicians is guided not by the duties of leadership, but by the rights of leadership, in which political office is used for personal gain. Examples of such rights to leadership are ubiquitous: massive increase of salary; awarding of Government scholarships, and so forth.
What is most troubling is that, after two years in office, the regime is in dire straits, struggling to meet promises and goals in regard to growth and development for the next three years. I expect in the next year more political episodes that will march us towards more decadence, more despair and more disappointment. The regime’s game plan now is to embarrass, malign, discredit and silence the opposition through witch-hunting and punitive machinations, while distracting the Guyanese public from its internal squabbling, hypochondriac reactions and ineptitude to deliver. Moreover, I do not dismiss the regime’s secret plan on how to rig the 2020 election. I do hope I am wrong.
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