In a blistering commentary that spares no institution and shreds all illusions, commentator GHK Lall delivers a searing indictment of President Irfaan Ali and the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government, describing the presidency as “in tatters” and “reduced to tragedy.”
With precision and wrath, Lall paints a picture of a country betrayed—led by a man who, in his view, offends more with every defense and tears down the presidency with every utterance.
“The more the president defends, the more he offends. The more his paid people rush to deny the farces of the president, the more they decimate themselves. By tablespoons, then torrents.”
At the core of Lall’s concern is the president’s handling of national affairs, the weaponisation of denial, and the deployment of propaganda in place of governance. He excoriates the president’s public behaviour, calling it degrading and dangerous to the nation’s dignity.
“A president that mutilates himself almost every time he opens his mouth, does one of his dancing bear gyrations… a president in crisis… a president in pieces.”
Continental Strategy Scandal
Lall unleashes fire on the government’s controversial deal with U.S.-based lobbying firm Continental Strategy LLC, slamming it as a grotesque farce. Despite public denials of any involvement, documents show the PPP government is paying the firm US$60,000 per month—what Lall calls money “to do nothing.”
“Continental Strategy is being paid… to do nothing. I should be considered for such an engagement. I would kick it—and only my upbringing wouldn’t allow me doing the same to the people bringing such a Trojan Horse as a gift.”
For Lall, the sarcasm is sharp, the accusation clear: the government is selling illusion and buying silence, while the president pretends ignorance.
The scandalous payout is reportedly being weaponised to poison international opinion against presidential contender Azruddin Mohamed, branding him a puppet of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, the regime that continues to lay false and aggressive claim to Guyana’s Essequibo Region.
Lawlessness in Transparency
Lall takes a scalpel to the government’s blatant disregard for Access to Information laws, accusing the administration of mocking legal procedures and reducing transparency to a punchline. The president’s response to inquiries—branding them “politically motivated”—is dismissed as shallow and cynical.
“When a national leader sees the world through the narrow prism of PPP versus PNC, then his world is a sea of rubbish and gibberish.”
He points out the hypocrisy of enforcing laws that the government itself flouts with impunity, and singles out Bharrat Jagdeo as the architect of laws that are now weaponized or ignored entirely.
“A president beholding himself as a legend in his own mind… he shatters what is left of his credibility… clawed and savaged by his own hand.”
Public Works and Public Farce
The president’s recent threats to contractors over missed deadlines is mocked as theater. Lall likens the state of national infrastructure to a circus ring, with deadlines as props and the people as unwilling spectators.
“The president summoned a farce, and delivered a circus. Deliver by December 31st, or else… What Guyanese have been treated to is a masquerade disguised as a tirade with infrastructure works stuck in the middle.”
Lall sees rot at every level—contracts delayed, standards abandoned, and leadership descending into pantomime.
A National Humiliation
The conclusion is damning. Lall sees the presidency not as wounded but as wasted—stripped of respect, ravaged by ego, and rendered unrecognisable.
“The president may deceive himself that the louder his volume, and the more hostile his reactions, the more overpowering he is… He is a president torn and tattered. Guyana’s presidency reduced to a breathing tragedy.”
This is not simply political commentary—it is a national lament. GHK Lall’s words do not merely critique a president; they sound the alarm for a nation on edge, governed by deception, and drifting deeper into dysfunction. His message is not gentle, but neither is the reality he exposes.
