By GHK Lall- Where is the president? Is Guyana’s president still around? Is the president still the president? If the president is still around, then he cannot verbally abscond. Yes, he is busy on the campaign trail spreading his message of love laced with rich promises. There is recognition of the priority given to such political activities. Nonetheless, the head-of-state is still at the helm, has to say where he stands, for that is in his hands.
About the ambassador on WIN’s Mohamed. About the appropriateness of her Excellency’s intrusion into the roiling waters of Guyana’s politics. About the PPP’s reception to Excellency Nicole D. Theriot’s cunning blast from the past. That’s not about an undiplomatic call for regime change, but how to rearrange Guyana’s governance prospects. Consider if the Russians or Chinese had done the equivalent…. The White House and State Department (even the Pentagon) would have been up in arms.
I think that Guyana’s president has to have the kind of personal pride that compels him to break his silence on the ambassador’s intrusion, what I interpret to be a sneaky assist for the PPP’s chances. The ambassador is not the president. The man from Leonora still is, even though he is the smallest, frailest ever in the role. Something else is now shared with fellow Guyanese, none more than the president.
What does the US ambassador’s intrusion in Guyana’s elections, does for Guyana’s shaky democracy, other than dumping it right back again into the days of Burnham (and US interfering again)? Where are the guardians of democracy now re the US Ambassador’s electoral extravagance?
Similarly, the president’s outcries would have pierced the ears of CARICOM, the UN, the EU, and the OAS, among others, if the PPP was diplomatically targeted. Where is the president today, where was he last week when the ambassador jumped headfirst into the treacherous waters about governance concerns?
Respected attorney of more than national accolades, Ms. Melinda Janki, termed Excellency’s Theriot’s adventure into the dense forests of domestic elections as a “clumsy attempt.” It’s beyond clumsy. It is a handcuff that shackles a candidate for an unfair advantage for others, in the looming elections. To use diplomatic parlance, I have my own concerns, grave concerns. Excellency Theriot’s overreach is more than just clumsy, it is lumbering; insulting.
It degrades Guyanese to challenged children, those whose hands have to be held, after the scales have been removed from their eyes. Not having what it takes to get out of their diapers. Talk about slap down and putdown! What a testimony about American arrogance, American paternalism! Maybe maternalism is closer to the circumstances, since it’s Excellency Nicole Theriot.
And where is Guyana’s president, Guyana’s vice president, and Guyana’s attorney general, all honorable men? They are all engaged in the honorable art and conduct of elections in Guyana. More honorable men could not be found anywhere for the associated noble tasks at hand.
The usually garrulous Guyana headman, one given to boisterous bravado, is ominously silent on what he should flat-out denounce. The PPP doesn’t need American help, an ambassadorial leg up. The PPP will win or lose the September 1st elections on its own. The PPP will play fair, fight fair, and win fair.
No backdoor, backhanded, endorsement needed; no intervention from anybody, heavy-handed or sophisticated. The PPP can fight its own battles. The PPP doesn’t have to recruit foreign mercenaries.
Against my better judgment, I put these words and positions into the hands of Guyana’s president. Even though I know that he cannot accept them, because of how the PPP has arranged the cards. Southeast Asians lined up; GECOM’s fat list, and its venture into animal husbandry: making itself a jackass over a jaguar.
I read the PPP is desperate, is running scared. Having written on those, I nod. The fact that the president has reacted to Ambassador Theriot’s electoral overture, as if it happened in Libya or India, (not a word, not one whisper), is thunderous in itself. Silence is safe. Presidential silence also gives off a powerful whiff of the sinister in this instance. As if to confirm, Vice President Jagdeo gallops out of his tables, with the new PPP staple.
The deflection that the US may want Mohamed. Then later, Mohamed “could be taken away” by the US. Why is that necessary, meritorious, mentionable? Sounds like crude colluding and condoning. Now, I am getting a greater appreciation about how much elections are a matter of life and death to the PPP.
Regardless, wherever he goes, whatever he does, in this election season, the president must say unambiguously where he stands with the US Ambassador’s deplorable and insidious infringement in Guyana’s elections. Neither the president nor the PPP should desire to benefit from such a crass foreign intervention into Guyana’s politics.
