Latest update March 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 28, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Kaieteur News – Inconsistency, illogical pathways, reverse psychology and insecurity are some of the negative traits that have dogged the presidential reign of David Granger. He put his party in jeopardy because they couldn’t change him after he won the presidency and no one had the testicular boldness to birth the suggestion of a different candidate to replace him.
Mr. Granger was not a violent, authoritarian personality that sought to repress his influential critics. I became an uncompromising chastiser of his poor governance but there were no violence directed against me. But I believe in two things had APNU+AFC return to power.
One is, I think, PNC and AFC underlings would have harmed national dissidents. Secondly, Granger may have succumbed to constant condemnations by his critics and who knows, he may have sanctioned violence against them.
While I acknowledge that Granger did not conspire to harm people like me, it could not have deterred me from my incessant discussions of his poor performance and lack of leadership qualities. I have a job to do like every other human on Planet Earth, and analysing the use of power is part of my job.
In doing my work, it did not fail to gain my attention that Granger was not an eligible candidate for governmental headship. Unless Robert Corbin and/or Granger tell us the truth, the world will never know why (1) Granger accepted the leader role of the PNC and (2) accepted to run for president. Simply put, Mr. Granger was not good for politics and he did badly at both politics and governance.
To enumerate the times Mr. Granger faltered would fill the pages of a book manuscript. What follows below are things I just plucked out of my head and have not arranged them in any order. If Granger did not know that the huge salary increase was an egregious mistake just weeks after coming into power, then he knows nothing about the real world of politics. If he permitted the increase then he did a terrible thing. If he didn’t author the money spree then he should have stepped in and address the nation acknowledging it was a mistake.
Let us say that he accepted that changes in the marijuana law was a strategic campaign promise and accepted its inclusion in the 2015 manifesto. All he had to do when he got into power was to delay, procrastinate and evade. But he took a confrontationist path.
He told the nation that Guyana should not change the law because in doing so Guyana was copying and we should be careful how we copy from other countries. It was a pathetic display of poor judgment. Mr. Granger felt deeply insecure about his leadership role and took refuge in press avoidance. Then when he did meet the press, there were hardly any smiles, any funny jokes and no friendly repartee but serious tones as when he told the press when they asked him if he would appeal a court case, “I said what I said.”
Granger was an army official and he allowed his military character to overpower his West Indian cultural mentality. In was a soldier in power not a West Indian personality in power. This deliberate regimentation of his personality was not suited to West Indian politics and it did not invite open embrace by citizens. In sharp contrast to Granger was his predecessor, Donald Ramotar.
Granger had five years to learn from Ramotar but he chose not to. Ramotar was a jejune president that did not inspire the nation but Ramotar was a serious challenger to Cheddi Jagan for going into the bosom of people, talking to them, listening to what they had to say. When Jagan lost himself among the people, he was mostly serious. That was the nature of his personality. Ramotar on the other hand, had an evocative smile. He wore a permanent smile on his visage.
Space would not allow for a continuation of the enumeration of the flaws of Granger but he is heading for self-destruction just months away from putting his leadership to the vote in the PNC’s congress. At a time like this where he has serious contenders, Granger must know that he has to say pleasing things and come across as rational and logical. But he is not.
After cynically referring to some of his APNU partners as paper organisations, organisations that stood with him in two election campaigns, he is now shamelessly embracing two non-existent entities. His critics inside the PNC are bound to point out this distasteful discrepancy, among hundreds of others. I cannot see Granger winning. Rigging is the only game in town.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
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