Given what happened last week with government’s intensified attack on Azruddin Mohamed, Opposition Leader, particularly the event surrounding September 3, where he was arrested twice over spurious allegations, is further evidence the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) regime, in support with the Guyana Police Force, is behaving maniacally, kicking down the guardrails of democracy without concern that the consequences of such actions are contributing to the demise of society.
Guyana is witnessing a full-scale abuse of the Constitution and citizens’ rights by the PPP to settle political scores or target persons it deems enemies.
We are losing our way as a nation. For some time now, the society has come to believe that the people of Guyana no longer matter to the politicians, and those in power have unfettered reigns to do as they please without accountability.
The PPP/C regime has stolen every element of Guyanese society. Further, all the ill things the regime accused the administration of the People’s National Congress (PNC) or the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) coalition of, it has committed and continues, without challenge, to do even worse. Never in the history of independent Guyana have we had any minister accused of inappropriate acts of any kind who have not been held accountable or removed from office for the appropriate investigations, except for the Bharrat Jagdeo and Irfaan Ali regimes.
The PPP has taken the decision for years that it is not only going to be confined to making policies and decisions to guide the nation in keeping with the role of politicians, but is taking over every operational space within the Executive prescribed for department heads. The regime is inserting loyalists who are then beholden to the PPP and not the rule of law and universally acceptable principles.
We have witnessed the overreach everywhere—the Guyana Defence Force, Guyana Police Force, Public Service, Teaching Service; even the Judiciary and Legislature, which are constitutionally independent arms of government.
Guyana is no longer a democratic state. Let’s face this reality.
The PPP’s tentacles are in every arm of the state and non-state sector, snuffing life out of every facet of society and human life form that it cannot control.
Our society has become repressive and is becoming more dangerously so every day. We are at a very critical point, a point at which we need to oppose before it is too late. We are almost there and will suffer the fate of a brutal dictatorship if we remain silent.
Even the police have taken the decision that the Opposition Leader, an elected/constitutional position, must be limited in his freedom to fulfil the role of his office. As Opposition Leader, Mohamed is more than entitled to move around the length and breadth of this country without fear or interruption to his travel and movement, whether in private or public capacity.
If the holder of such a powerful office, elected by more than 100,000 voters, according to GECOM, has his movement on the public thoroughfare being questioned, what next can be expected for the average citizen?
Guyanese should not take this act of the PPP regime lightly or for granted because it threatens not only Mohamed but every citizen whom the PPP perceives not to be in its camp. And, as history has shown, even those within its camp can suffer a similar fate.
This is a warning, sounded again, to all Guyanese, be it in the opposition, government, or presumably non-aligned. We have to be enlightened to this threat which the nation currently faces and develop an awareness of what it means to every single person in the 83,000 square miles of Guyana, regardless of your connection/support to the government, religion, race, class, colour, creed, or geographic location.
To remain silent is to demonstrate complicity with the oppressive acts of government and the violation of the rights of citizens and others in Guyana. The violation of anyone’s rights is a threat to all.
