Latest update March 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Aug 24, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
I have heard many persons who support the Coalition Government frown on the PPP’s chastisements and castigations of the Granger/Nagamootoo administration with the bellicose exclamation; “they are in no position to talk.” They are right. The PPP created oceans of power madness when it governed Guyana. This columnist will definitely be afraid should the PPP return. And I fear for my family too.
Reality is a different matter. You may deny the PPP the moral right to criticize the Coalition, but you should understand that what the PPP is doing is what APNU and the AFC did when it was in opposition – it didn’t lose time in condemning the PPP Government for policies, whether good or bad. That was understandable because APNU and the AFC wanted to get citizens’ votes. When it got those votes and became the administration of the nation’s affairs, it relegated to the backburner many things it bitterly rejected. It even practiced and is practicing behavioural traits it rejected in the PPP regime. I have written about the barricades around Parliament so many times that I don’t have the psychological verve to rehash it again.
One simply cannot say to the PPP; you have no moral right to criticize us. The PPP wants votes, so they will continue to carp about the wrongdoing of the Coalition. But there is another dimension to the story. If the PPP has no ethical standards from which to judge the Granger/Nagamootoo regime, then who does it fall upon to shine the torchlight on bad governance? This is where the role of an opposition becomes a matter of democratic exigency.
If the AFC had won the government in May 2015, you really think the PNC, ACDA and other groups would have attended a ceremony at the 1823 Monument on the seawall. You are naïve if you think the PNC would have done that. To keep their support base solidified, they would have insisted that Parade Ground was the place for any such ceremony. They would have boycotted the ceremony as they did when it was inaugurated.
The PNC is in power and it went to the monument at the seawall for the 193rd anniversary of the 1823 slave rebellion. If the AFC was the government, you think the PNC would have been silent on the continuing brutality of teenagers caught with a few grams of marijuana? You are naïve if you think so. The PNC is in power today and in the fifteen months it has held power, literally hundreds of young men and women have had their future destroyed through possession of very small amounts of marijuana.
If the PNC was in power and the AFC was in Parliament, you think the AFC would have accepted the massive eviction of over 300 vendors at the Stabroek Market Square just for PNC leaders to have the float parade move from Stabroek Square for the Golden Jubilee celebrations? As night follows day, AFC cadres would have been out on the picket line in solidarity with the vendors. Against this backdrop, isn’t it logical for the PPP to engage in demagogic condemnations of the Coalition’s politics and policies?
Let’s return to the torchlight theory. Even if the PPP lacks moral standards, the opposition, by force of logic, has to shine the torchlight on governmental wrongdoing, and the PPP is in a position to do just that. It has the resources to make the torchlight work. It has a parliamentary presence that allows it access to very sensitive information which it can publish if that information is of public interest. It was through parliamentary questions by the opposition in Parliament that the nation knows that over half a billion dollars was spent on the D’Urban Park project.
So we come to the complex question. Should the media, civil society and the nation at large make use of the opposition’s exposures? The answer is yes. The argument that posits that the PPP’s moral bankruptcy disqualifies it from castigating and criticizing the Coalition Government has serious consequences. To choose not to use powerful information the PPP has on governmental wrongdoing can open the door to dictatorship.
How then are we to know if there are conspiracies inside the corridors of power?
It was a newspaper purported to be partly owned by Bharrat Jagdeo that first informed the nation that there was a huge salary increase done surreptitiously and secretly, weeks after the Coalition came to power. Should Coalition supporters frown on that revelation all because it came from Jagdeo’s newspaper?
The PPP was downright depraved when it was in government, but a country needs to have information on governmental violations. Who cares where the info comes from? Once it is factual.
Listen to the man that is throwing Guyanese bright future away
Mar 19, 2024
Kaieteur Sports – The Dennis DeoRoop-trained horse, Stolen Money, dominated the field to claim victory in the feature event at the Kennard’s Memorial Turf Club, Bush Lot East Berbice on...Kaieteur News – The government has embarked on an ambitious infrastructure development spree. It has initiated major... more
By Sir Ronald Sanders Waterfalls Magazine – In 2024, a series of general elections in Latin American countries, including... more
Freedom of speech is our core value at Kaieteur News. If the letter/e-mail you sent was not published, and you believe that its contents were not libellous, let us know, please contact us by phone or email.
Feel free to send us your comments and/or criticisms.
Contact: 624-6456; 225-8452; 225-8458; 225-8463; 225-8465; 225-8473 or 225-8491.
Or by Email: [email protected] / [email protected]