By GHK Lall- Pres. Ali took to his electronic soapbox to influence Guyana’s electronic mob. His choice of issues was disadvantageous, no high ground to plant his feet. EU and judiciary. Unfair incumbency edge and taxes on a Lamborghini, other regal carriages. Better if the dancer in Excellency Ali had taken over, and he had waltzed around those. His Facebook high dudgeon laid him low.
The EU made its recommendations in 2020; checked in 2023. Minimal progress on the high priority ones, save for two completed. Serious recommendations with national implications were inherited from the 2020 PNC, with some of older PPP vintage. Like campaign financing. Now the president lathers himself in righteous, injured indignation. EU bias. I single out three differences (biases) for the PPP of Dr. Ali. Media bias, state asset misuse, and campaign money mysteries. The rest are Xmas gifts to the president. I also donate the misuse of state assets to the PPP.
The government had work to do, ministers had to be on the move, and because it was the season of elections, leaders and ministers multitasked. The PPP went to Community A to extol on education, so it reasonably mentioned elections. Guyana collects some savings. To err is to be charitable, so the PPP gets state assets. The PPP did a good deed (doubled up), and the party gets clobbered -unfair incumbency advantage. It’s that old saw again: do good, hold wood. Now I leave Pres. Ali on his verbal Heroes Highway, and take a different road (straighter, cleaner, higher one).
The mangling of state media to deliver monstrosities to the masses. The EU had its stats; Dr. Ali had his searing script. Who are these people? look at the kind of Guyanese people from whom they got their facts. Yes, Prime Minister. Apologies, Dr. Excellency. There is a quiet and pleasing way to obliterate this bottleneck between the PPP Govt and the EU mission, which was wise enough to recruit an EU parliamentarian on its return trip. Always sound policy to walk with backup.
HE has a galaxy of creative statisticians at his disposal. Thus, I respectfully recommend that he instructs them to produce PPP stats that prove the EU’s claimed media bias is a product of the EU’s imagination, and naysaying Guyanese Machiavellian machinations. All the president has to do is to show how much time the PNC and AFC got on state media. WIN, who cared about WIN then (or now?) The proof is in the pudding, which the president knows. In 2020 elections, the PNC had its grand spreadsheets. Relative to misuse of state media, the PPP should have its own bedsheets. As self-incriminating, as they be. I help the president, whisper to him. Sir, leave the media one alone, if the objection is against bias.
Unfortunately, Pres. Ali is in the same leaky boat (regardless of the ruckus he stirs), relative to campaign financing. Does Guyana have a comprehensive, robust law, or not? Does Guyana need such a law urgently, or not? And, did the EU point out what a blind man could identify while under blackwater and without a seeing eye dog? Should I say more? Given that Dr. Ali roped in the latest judiciary decision on a Lamborghini, I must go there and link that to campaign financing absence(s).
Campaign financing disclosures should be mandatory, with donor identity and source of money prominent. Easy, right? Well, not according to the PPP and PNC. What’s cooking there, baby? The EU dredged it up, and reheated it. And there was Pres. Ali waxing furiously about a judicial ruling on a Lamborghini. What’s the connection, if any? When donors give heavy money, they expect lavish generosity in return.
Given allegations, with seemingly matching phone texts, I think Pres. Ali is not the best person to pronounce on Justice Persaud’s adjudication, right or wrong. The president’s alleged fingerprints on that luxury vehicle caper places him too close to that instance of alleged criminality. Appeal judicial differences. The relevant point is that when there is the campaign financing regime that exists in Guyana, then it facilitates that kind of Lamborghini power.
Bureaucratic and political power (mainly political) to minimize dues owed. Have a law and donors have to operate fairly and openly. Have a meaningful campaign financing law, and the EU people have no work to do. After the storms of five years ago, the EU shouldn’t have had much to do in 2025. It means that, like the Burnham Constitution that the PPP once hated but now love, so also the benefits of state media control and campaign financing secrecies and the political enrichments that those deliver. When the PNC did it in 2020 -horror. When the PPP repeats in 2025 -humor. There was Excellency Ali, the proven Facebook entertainer.
