Speaking constantly of litigation gives the Opposition the thrill of being naughty and the glee of provoking the Coalition, whose hosannas rattled the rafters when the slur of Interim Government was obliterated by the sudden death of a No Confidence Motion, that was conceived by minds with more parts evil than a loose rendition of genius.
Genius, Opposition is coming to grips with, is the application of every ounce of law that could be wrung out of law books – fortunately not stolen by the preceding Attorney General – in conjunction with the Constitution, mangled by the President of 2001 who hollowed out the document with the promiscuity of a prostitute who has no understanding of currency.
Of course they have the right to appeal but it is telling that the Opposition and not the other Parties is sounding the alarm of scaling the battlements to the Caribbean Court of Justice, CCJ.
What does it tell, you ask?
Well let’s back up to a reasonable starting point for this thing.
Guyana has devolved into Tribes, each entrenched behind some
impregnable stockade and creating an ever- widening divide between itself and the others. It’s the stuff gangs are made of and with it comes the blind allegiance and the cultish affiliation that signals a detachment from reality and a refusal to acknowledge normal thinking.
Tribes demand loyalty and for that they offer a place to commune. It’s a badge of identity not of thinking. The Tribe Leaders think and its members affirm or risk the wrath of excommunication. In short, they function on a cycle of mutual insecurity with the Head not being a head if he loses his tribe and the tribesperson not being able to commune elsewhere, since their thinking becomes attuned to that of the Tribe.
So, when the expected Apocalypse failed to occur by the Appeals Court
upholding the No Confidence Motion but invalidated it instead, it was amusing, though not surprising, to see the group make yet another trademark U-Turn to fall robotically behind its failed leader, Jagdeo, who’s now spun a different path to heaven…through the CCJ.
Maybe, amusing is a lil harsh but then one has to look at the complete
picture, the march into aimlessness in a contrived show of lament over a
feigned coup d’état, complete with a staged demonstration of paid protesters, in a sham of anti government solidarity.
I mean, how does one declare that there’s a coup that requires national militancy then, without foiling the coup or declaring it abated, just stop preventing the coup?
Quantum contradictions define this Jagdeo, leader by title only, when we measure the volume of failure he has designed and overseen. Failing in such a successfully uninterrupted manner may explain why he remains committed to trial with almost guaranteed error.
But this is why his opponents must remain on high alert, even after his clown show.
Contradictions.
The guy takes the low road and has the fighting instincts of the animal that defends itself best when on its back. All this to camouflage his brittle insecurities of not being regarded as powerful, as his every action oozes incompetence involuntarily. It’s a lethal combination, when you still command the minds of hundreds of thousands, even when your successes are a net negative.
Mission remains unaccomplished, if his Party is not heading government with unmitigated access to the national treasury. His sect remains invigorated by disappointment… two dangerous traits of abnormal desperation…
…which brings us to those taking a victory lap at this moment .
We’ve established that Jagdeo’s only discernible talent is disruption…as his pouting absence from Parliament attests. Add this to his unenviable reputation of filing frivolous lawsuits and waving the threat of the CCJ like a punk bank robber waves a rubber gun, hoping that the perception of threat will drive fear.
Should the CCJ revisit these character traits and dismiss him, yet again, how ready will the Coalition Government be to re-ascend to office, should they win, after constitutionally dictated elections are held?
There’s little daylight between their brand of tribalism and the type we highlighted above.
Maybe they’re noticing that the government is in crisis.
Better late than never, we’re thinking but not, apparently, in such crisis that
there’s a change in the approach to their ingrained brand of politicking.
Having failed, almost ignominiously, to deliver on a Manifesto they campaigned boisterously on, it would be good to hear what parts of it will be implemented with haste, since their first term is waning with massive gains in the ‘Not Attempted’ column.
But who’s righting the ship?
They don’t seek a different diet.
Instead of the old game of bashing an opponent, time would be productively spent by informing the voter why the Coalition is the best option, how they plan on improving crumbling school houses, providing jobs for the un and underemployed.
Infrastructure is awful. Talk about planned improvement.
The whole idea of every house having an overhead water tank is modern day embarrassment. Talk about potable water through every pipe.
Burial sites are desecrated by Municipal failure to maintain. Talk about funding that.
And then talk about how the Coalition intends to do better at Administration, listening to the people and not only its party members.
There’s power in anti-charisma and the smart, unpretentious politician would know jeers and disagreements are typically always better than adulation and applause, which is a polite reflex in a friendly audience and not always a sign that people are listening and evaluating and approving.
Admonition received from a card-carrying Coalition member suggests that I am asking for a change in a practice that is too ingrained to be altered and especially in the short time span to the next election.
His suggestion…do like him, don’t rock the boat, a change is gonna come.
I could do my one-liner mudslinging and tell him those were songs I danced to in the good old days of ice-cream banquets for the church fundraiser.
But this is serious stuff.
The misfired prorogation by the Party with the leader that is a serial failure gave opportunity for rebirth in ways that were unimagined before voters, including those who swung from their usual voting habits, demanded change through their ballots.
If the needle moved in the direction of change, it is not reflected in the sentiment of many who voted Coalition.
But they are willing to continue their support because they’ve been the victims of twenty three years of malevolence by a Government and Party whose members have acquired wealth well beyond their salaries, while wages remained stagnant and squatting communities flourished and the general standard of living fell to the 3rd lowest in the Western Hemisphere.
But it’s not a sure shot.
Skepticism still rides high, as voters reflect on the unrealized expectations of the past 4 years.
For a while, it escaped detection by the people’s desire to set a villain, the previous Administration, off against a savior, the Coalition and its comparatively clean image and much touted integrity.
By September 2016, however, their refrain was blurred lines and their mood swung from perplexity and anger to shame and disappointment.
But the inveiglement suspected in the Charrandass defection because of the entitlement the PPP suggests is theirs, makes them concede that, as turned off as they are from the Coalition, the prospect of another PPP entrenchment is frightening.
So we’re down to a choice of worsts, I said to the card- carrying Coalition supporter who was concerned about me rocking the boat. Fresh wounds are quicker recalled.
But the other Party… he interrupted.
Look, I continued, Jagdeo will never be seen as more than just the sum of his squalid parts. People want to vote for their future .
Well this is what we got, he apologized. Plus they going back to court…..
Nothing has changed.
The new Administration did not introduce the new way of thinking it said it would.
The electorate still goes to the polls to vote for Tribe and not country.
You saying that over and over, he accuses, in a tone that says you should be tribal too and if you’re not, mind your business.
Hmm….the tribal thing, now with some territorialism.
Whatever their sentiment, Guyana will be holding elections imminently.
I will make the argument that four years of a disappointing Coalition is exponentially better than twenty three years of a kakistocracy- government run by a cadre of the least qualified, most unscrupulous people.
But I will, also, say that Government is a service position in which politicians are the employees of the people who voted them in…to the chagrin of those who are offended by the truth, in repetition.
Politicians are not royalty, are not above the law and are not entitled to genuflections or curtsies. Their offices are to be respected, not deified. They are employees who are subject to performance evaluations and should be admonished when necessary and fired when deserved.
If they took the job, they have a fiduciary responsibility to execute it well enough to benefit those whom they represent.
And those who are kept in office, in spite of multiple egregious infractions, affirm the deliberacy of leadership to ignore rule and policy in favor of Partisan sentiment ..for which they will pay.
This is the People’s Government, not a private enterprise where arbitrary favor can be shown, arbitrarily.
It’s sad that, 53 years Post Independence, the choice is still from amongst an assembly of worsts. But should the political gods favor the incumbent Coalition, I will support the call for a new thing to be done within, to right this Ship of State that has too many characters that mirror its philosophical analogy… I continued.
This is all we got…continues the card – carrying Coalition Supporter, more reflective than strident this time…it better than the other side.
We sort of said our goodbyes on that note…. that they better than the ‘other side’.
Under the circumstances I agree with him…
…though it’s praise by faint damnation.
