Pres Ali is a case study in settling for second place, a position he knows all too well-Lall

By GHK Lall- I say it in the simplest terms: it would be greatly pleasing to shower accolades on Mohamed Irfaan Ali.  To praise Excellency Ali, the national leader, but I can’t in good conscience.  To pay homage to Head of State Ali, the holder of the most vaunted and hallowed office of Guyana’s presidency, but how can I, what has he given me, given this nation, to grasp as his record?  And where to locate the regard, the kind that is genuine, for a fellow citizen and a man who is also a brother?

From all of these, there comes that unwanted, yet compulsory, circumstance: that from which I must distance myself.  For in Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, I believe there is the example of someone who held promise, then faded, fell.  He has succeeded in making others bury their honesty, pushed them to go nauseatingly along with him in his charades.

In this first part of peering into the presidency of Excellency Ali, the first five years, there is so much that even today’s single focus and broad stroke show up in raw, even ugly, ways.  For starters, the president is the president, and there is no other.  No tag team, no two-headed contraption, no de jure or slippery de facto orchestration, setup.  That’s the beginning and end of the story.

What is a first citizen, if not first and above those who are unequal, no matter their own pedigree, or any such claim to one?  I have searched without success for Excellency Ali to establish his credentials that attest to his being the most senior presence in this country.  Where is that Ali?  He pretends at the presidential, at what’s magisterial, despite knowing that he has failed at both.

Many others may be happy to be fawningly, cunningly, unashamedly, at deceiving the president about how magnificent he has been, has done.  Humblest apologies Mr. President, but I can’t.  Among the more unpardonable injustices that I may heap upon President Ali would be one that misleads, lulls, him into a false sense of being, of a standing that does not belong.  Because it has not been earned.

Excellency Ali has the power and authority of the presidency.  What has he done with that supreme power and authority?  He may not have willingly delegated it (which he cannot), but he shouldn’t standby idly, and let others seize that for themselves.  By my reckoning, the latter is the graver weakness.  For if he cannot wield with unfettered freedom the instruments of his unchallengeable office, then what is he free to do?

I urge my fellow Guyanese to think.  What do we, as Guyanese, then have when our government now sits as a clear manifestation of shared governance (to be presumptuous [if not mischievous])?  For singular national leadership when there is shared leadership?  When Excellency Ali is in some way, however slight, hobbled from spreading his presidential wings to the maximum, then no amount of restoration work could put him on a pedestal.  Whatever their true objectives, there will always be others rushing forward panting breathlessly and embarrassingly to do those dubious honors.

Presidents have little patience, less tolerance, for those who compete with them, those who render them less than presidential.  Presidents are not sidestepped, nor circled around, nor made to look wanting by their faithful.  Unfortunately, all of those have been part of Excellency Ali’s legacy for the last five years.  In the most apt comparison, I behold a man and a brother, who has been victimized by domestic violence.  Consider the political kind.  And having been so traumatized that he now turns around and dishes out his own share of licks on the smaller and frailer.

Any scrutiny of his public record will prove whether it has been so, or not.  Who is the head of this nation?  No one can report to two masters and not fail, come to an abrupt stop.  The only master that President Ali has (or should have) are the people of Guyana.  For what are the people, high and low, rich and poor, if not his masters, since he is their servant?  There can be no other master, none that comes perilously close to that sacred office of the presidency.

President Ali knows all of this all too well.  Yet, he has been the most curious master of the local universe: one that takes a backseat, one who is content to be second fiddle.  Since no one else will tell the president, then it is my heavy duty to do so: second fiddle, Mr. President, is second rate.  Or the artificial public joy in being so.  I exhort Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali to stand up and assert himself.  Being the most powerful, and most well-regarded, leader on the inside empowers to be the same on the outside.  Guyanese have been watching, and they don’t like what they see, what has long been undeniable, so blatantly obvious it has been.

No president should consent to be a puppet or a ventriloquist.  No president should like being reduced to a mannequin.  Or, at best, a man spinning webs.  (Part Two to follow).