President Ali Continues to Demonstrate his Unsuitability for Holding Guyana’s Highest Office

Dear Editor

President Ali has continued to demonstrate his unsuitability for holding Guyana’s highest office.  From his refusal to start the process to appoint a Chancellor and a Chief Justice to his imitation of a black icon Michael Jackson to entertaining Vybz Kartel at State House and his handling of the border dispute with Venezuela.

President Ali, before he was sworn in as President faced 19 fraud charges which were withdrawn.  His government has faced serious allegations of corruption, many of which were allegedly leaked by the Attorney General to Melly Mel.

The President has shown no confidence in his Ministers who he summoned to a 6 a.m. meeting where he publicly humiliated them about incomplete work on contracts that were awarded.  Whether this was a publicity stunt or not, it demonstrated the scant regard he has for his Ministers.

Just when you think things can’t get worse, President Ali hosts Vybz Kartel, a Jamaican dance hall artiste at State House.  I believe if the President listens to 5 Vybz Kartel songs which are sexually explicit and vulgar, he may need a lot of prayers from an Imam.

The following day, as though this was designed to display the President’s incompetence, there was a Venezuela military ship in Guyana’s waters near the drilling site for oil.  He invited the Opposition to a briefing at State House.  However noticeably absent was the Prime Minister Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips, a former Chief of Staff.  If he was overseas, he could’ve participated via Zoom or a similar platform.  Of course there was the token African Guyanese, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Hugh Todd.

President Ali showed his government’s immaturity when he and members of his team went to St. Vincent & the Grenandines at the Argyle International Airport (a gift from Venezuela to St. Vincent & The Grenadines) to meet with President Maduro.  On the tarmac was a plane which flew Maduro there, with the tail marked ‘Essequiba es nuestros’.

What would Forbes Burnham have done? He would not have had the matter before the ICJ and go to meet Maduro in St. Vincent & the Grenadines.  He would have known that Dr. Ralph Gonsalves may be a friend of Guyana but a comrade of Venezuela.  Burnham would have advising him, not only his Foreign Ministers (from Sir Shridath Ramphal, Fred Wills or Rashleigh Jackson) but his senior military officers.

With his shady qualifications, Ali and his government continue to ensure that non-supporters of the PPP are excluded from One Guyana.

This is supposed to be an election year, but Guyana deserves better now and I would borrow the words of Mr. K.D. Knight, K.C. who at a Commission of Inquiry in Jamaica about the government’s involvement with Dudus Coke, a drug lord wanted by the US, told the Prime Minister Mr. Bruce Golding, “Pack your bags and go.”

Yours sincerely,

A. Black.