Dear Editor,
In August 2020, we didn’t just witness an inauguration; we witnessed a sermon. We were told of a man who emerged from the red dust of humble beginnings, a man who promised to be the shield for the “snuffed out” and the voice for the silent. We were sold a vision of “One Guyana”—not as a marketing slogan on a billboard, but as a sacred social contract.
But as we stand in 2026, the air in Georgetown smells less like the sea breeze of progress and more like the high-octane exhaust of a vintage British motorcade.
Let us look at the tape. In his debut, President Ali looked us in the eye and said:
“As President, I will have to walk with kings… but I assure you that I will never lose the common touch.”
Today, that “common touch” has been replaced by the velvet glove of the elite. While the Guyanese mother navigates a market where the price of plantains and poultry has been inflated by the very oil wealth she was promised would save her, the “Kings” are no longer just international dignitaries. They are a new class of crony-royalty, cruising in tax-exempt luxury, shielded from the reality of the potholed streets the rest of us traverse.
Where is the “National Crusade” against poverty? In 2020, the promise was structural change—a Petroleum Commission to guard our black— gold from political greed. Six years later, that commission is a ghost, and the keys to our children’s future remain firmly in the pockets of the politicians. The “crusade” has become a campaign of handouts—temporary cash grants that feel less like empowerment and more like “hush money” to keep the common man from noticing that the staircase to real wealth has been pulled up behind the leaders.
The President has mastered the art of the political costume , changing colors like the “golden chameleon.” One day, he is in sneakers in a rural trench, promising “inclusion.” The next, he is presiding over a “One Guyana” that looks increasingly like a gated community for the connected. You cannot claim to “walk besides” the man who is struggling to pay his rent while you are busy curating a collection of vintage autos and rubbing shoulders with those who view Guyana as a private ATM.
The “One Guyana” we were promised was a bridge. Instead, it has become a brand used to paint over the cracks of a deepening class divide. When the glitter of the oil money finally settles, will there be anything left of the man who promised to stay “common”? Or has the crown finally grown too heavy for the conscience?
To the man being “silently snuffed out” in the shadow of the new skyscrapers: Your struggle is not an oversight; it is the cost of the new royalty’s comfort. It is time we stop listening to the poetry of the inauguration and start looking at the prose of the presidency.
The chameleon has changed, but the common man is still waiting for the sun to rise.
Respectfully,
Hemdutt Kumar
