Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 15, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
They say the type of person who exhibits more contempt for people than any other groups of humans is the politician. Policemen, prison officials and sailors are people, who because of the nature of their jobs, tend to be cynical and dismissive of their fellow humans.
But it is the politician who is capable of the most repellant vocabulary that both subtly and barefacedly seek to deceive their fellow citizens to get votes and thus to secure power
The politician is capable of the most asinine and most destructive comment just to win votes. I cannot believe a Guyanese citizen who lives in his/her own country, abides by its laws and pays his/her taxes, bears up with all the shortcomings of his/her country, would agree that fellow Guyanese who have long left these shores and who have long settled and are happy in foreign cocoons, would agree to give the right to a legal ballot in the country’s elections.
Just think of the moral repugnancy of such an action. The consequences are too frightening to contemplate. We can think of just one particular immoral dimension – outsiders determine who govern the insiders. It is said that the constitution, in fact, provides for this. No wonder people call this country incredible.
Of course, our politicians, from all the political parties, will be sharing out the right to vote to all those expatriate Guyanese when they address them – wherever they are – when the election campaign becomes official.
I read the other day that the new leader of TUF made a comment about the Guyana Government, that it has not done sufficient for the Amerindians. Politicians are capable of the gravest insults. This woman’s party has been part of the government since 2001, and in those ten years she never even publicly whispered that her government (it has to be her government because her party is a partner in the administration) should do more for the indigenous communities.
We are now hearing those sentiments from her as a national election is about to happen. No matter how nice and civil you want to be to this politician, the naked truth is that she is playing the game of electioneering to win over the Amerindian people. Surely, people can’t be that blind not to see where this lady is coming from.
The name Ralph Ramkarran should not be left out. He became part of the inner leadership of the PPP in 1974. In an interview with this newspaper, he said that he joined the PPP as a teenager. One can then put the years of service to the PPP as more than forty. Yet it was only in 2011 that Mr. Ramkarran observed that NIS benefits should be given out to those who pass sixty years of age, because that is the time when you would need NIS assistance.
And when did Mr. Ramkarran come to this judgement? While he was in competition with others to win the PPP’s presidential nomination for the imminent national elections.
Speaking to an audience that went to the National Stadium to collect their titles to their plots in Eccles, Mr. Jagdeo announced the return of the train. Long abolished by the former president, Forbes Burnham (in 1974), Mr. Jagdeo told his listeners that its implementation will serve to remove traffic congestions on the highways.
One’s immediate reaction was that Mr. Jagdeo had to know that President Jagan in 1996 approached the Indian Government for help to re-invent the train, but the cost was unimaginable and Dr. Jagan dropped the dream.
Even though the return of the train might not meet with opposition, a huge majority of Guyanese would prefer to see those billions spent on the eventual dissolution of the weaknesses of GPL. If I had to vote for the train or putting the money into GPL, no need to tell you my choice. The train won’t survive the Cassandra Crossing if it is built by the same company that gave us the Guysuco Skeldon factory or by the engineering firm supplying the road to the great hydro-power scheme.
Don’t get your hopes high. Don’t start to feel fearful of the foreign group who will build the train. The locomotive isn’t coming to Guyana. Mr. Jagdeo was doing what all politicians do – making a pitch for votes.
In the coming weeks, greater absurdities will be heaped on the Guyanese population just to get votes. The barefacedness, promises and puerilities will be promulgated by NCN, Chronicle, Guyana Times, Mirror, channels 28, 65 and 69 as the days move on. Just don’t be stupid and buy them.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
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