In an election season already stained with theatrics and controversy, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has dragged political discourse to new depths, replacing policy with vulgarity. The shift, critics say, is not accidental — it is a calculated attempt to divert attention from the massive misuse of taxpayers’ money to bankroll the campaign through kickbacks, corruption, collapsing multi-million and multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects, shoddy roadwork, widespread graft, marginalisation of communities, and a long list of unfulfilled promises.
This latest turn has nothing to do with the “sanction man” We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) Presidential Candidate Azruddin Mohamed, sanctioned by the United States, but everything to do with the PPP’s new reliance on raw, crude sexual remarks to rile up crowds and dominate headlines.
At recent rallies, in full view of women and children, PPP Candidate Lennox “Leno” Craig told supporters, including the undecided, that a vote for the PPP meant the party “will take care of you from erection to resurrection.”
Craig, seeking to make his remarks “inclusive,” added: “The last time I said that, somebody came up to me and said you’re a little biased… erection is a man thing, what happened to the women? So I’ve got the woman thing for you. Hear me… from the moment she slimed up, till she get caught up, we will take care of you.”
Just feet away, former President and current Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo was visibly entertained, seemingly unbothered by the crude sexualisation of the party’s campaign — a tone grossly inappropriate for a public forum attended by people of all ages.
Not to be outdone, Prime Minister Mark Phillips, speaking at a PPP rally in Bath Settlement, Region Five, launched his own sexual metaphor against the Opposition:
“[The Opposition] will make promises to get your vote, and when they got into office, they screwed you. That’s a harsh term, but I have to use it. They screwed you without grease.”
The reaction has been one of shock and disgust. “Guyana has gone to the dogs,” one commentator remarked. The issue, they said, is not whether Craig or Phillips are grappling with erectile dysfunction and in need of pharmacological and/or psychotherapeutic intervention(s). Their choice to parade such crudity in public is itself a sign of political impotence. “Some things,” the commentator added, “are better left unsaid, including any reference to their private struggles, because this is not only crude, it’s a gross disrespect to the men, women, and children of our society.”
For many observers, these remarks are more than tasteless — they are a deliberate smokescreen to distract from the plundering of public funds, crumbling state projects, rampant corruption, and the neglect of ordinary citizens. The sexual punchlines may win applause from the faithful, but they also expose a deeper truth: when leaders have no achievements to campaign on, they resort to cheap vulgarity to hide the rot.
