Ali-Jagdeo Tango Exposes Power Struggle and U.S. Influence in Guyana’s Leadership- Lall

The Ali and Jagdeo combo do their own tango.  Fascinating, it is.  The sitting president speaks, the former president runs before the public with the subtitles.  Pardon me, please, but I thought that all Guyanese spoke English; the same brand of it.  Not according to bhai Jagdeo who has appointed himself babysitter of President Ali.  Listen to him in fine form: ‘say ahhh.  Say aay, bee, see….’  What are mentors for, if not to hold the hand and set the head straight!  Mind and mouth, too.

For there it was just a few short weeks ago, and President Ali was in fine form, “The US is a great friend of ours. The US has made it very clear that they are ready to stand by us in our development, in our economic expansion, in our security and in our defence. And I will say very boldly that such friends must have some different and preferential treatment, because a friend, who will defend me when I need a friend to defend me, must be a friend that enjoys some special place in our heart and in our country, that will be the case.”

Roll of drums and blare of trumpets, please; the president has spoken.  There is a little hiccup.  The vice president doesn’t like it.  What is there not like, when the PPP Government, in its better imitation of the PNC and AFC, has given away Guyana’s oil to Exxon, and Guyana to America?  But there is Dr. Jagdeo running to do his usual rescue job, as though he is some fusion of Sharukh Khan and the Black Panther superhero.  Not the film version relative to the latter, but the Marvel Comics one from almost 60 years ago.

When the US top diplomat, Marco Rubio (sounds like a poem doesn’t it?), came here and went over the top about the Guyana-America relationship, Guyana’s Ali decided to do him one better: “different and preferential treatment” for the Yankees.  Why not, I ask?  Who is standing right by the side of Guyana, if not in front of it, against Venezuela?  Whoever said China or India or Africa is in urgent need of a pre colonoscopy flush.  Of their heads, not their gut.  “A great friend” must have “some special place in our hearts” and America has been that, notwithstanding, Rabbi, Rev Jim, and the CIA.  One must not forget Excellency Sarah Ann Lynch.

C’mon Dr. Jagdeo.  A special friend is due some consideration, and “different and preferential treatment” has my blessing.  I suggest to Excellency Jagdeo that he stops being a babysitter to President Ali, and a crybaby before all Guyana.  Who is defending Guyana?  America.  Whose bristling rhetoric has made Nicolas Maduro refocus from Essequibo (for the time being) and concentrate on saving his own skin?  Is it not the good ole USA, brother?  President Ali knows what he is saying, and has no reason to pass any memo to the Office of the Vice President for proofreading and other vetting.

Former presidents don’t have veto power over standing ones.  Even a chap as slack as Jagdeo knows that convention.  The president said what he said, and that’s it.  Vice President Jagdeo knows the power of the American Eagle all too well, and with its current special meaning to Guyana.  There is Venezuela and that man Maduro.  So, stop the tangoing, which is growing rather stale after five years of the Ali rip-roaring time at the helm.  Truth be told, I understand Dr. Jagdeo’s dilemma.  Because the political opposition is so weak, it is Jagdeo’s duty to do its work for it, and rein in the exuberance of the president.  Indeed, loose lips sink ships.  Moreover, this wholesale giving away of Guyana’s goods has to have the brakes applied to it.

To Dr. Jagdeo, I say what he knows already.  Who cares about the Treaty of Chaguaramas?  Guyana is bigger than that today.  Why make a mountain out of national sovereignty, when Exxon and America enjoy suzerainty over the PPP Government, Dr. Jagdeo and Dr. Ali, and all that goes on in Guyana?  It doesn’t matter that Exxon is a corporate superpower in its own right; it now exercises suzerainty over Guyana’s oil and its heads.  Whoever wants to pick a fight with that is free to do so, with only the disdainful coming from this quarter.  President Ali didn’t speak out of turn, or too much.  He simply read in public the PPP script for staying in power.  Please, Mr. Jagdeo, stop playing these games.  Stop pretending that Guyana is independent of America, and is free to choose who qualifies as a special friend; hence, due “preferential treatment.”

I am curious to see how Mr. Jello (Jagdeo) spins his words when the Americans decide to plant a base somewhere in Guyana, preferably close to Venezuela to survey Caracas and beyond.  In fact, my intuition whispers that the Americans have enough manpower in Guyana’s interiors, to make a base a matter of officializing what is running about on the ground.  Finally, after half a decade, Mohamed Irfaan Ali should be allowed to stand on his own two feet, speak his own two cents, and prove that he is no two-bit leader.  More on this coming later.