The now coalition opposition employed election ruse and distraction to buy time

Dear Editor,

As I survey happenings here, I sense considerable cageyness from the opposition. It is perplexing as to why others are silent on what should trouble in increasing confirmation of a one-party state in the making. I think I understand why the opposition shenanigans are present, with the following thoughts growing stronger daily.

The first is that the now coalition opposition employed one election ruse and distraction after another to buy time. Court actions, they called them. The question is this: buy time to do what? What is solidifying more firmly, with the robustness of irrefutable commonsense, is that the coalition used the 5 months of elections delays, devices, and controversies to buy time to create opportunities to siphon-off movable and immovable assets of the state. If realistic market values are attached to some of the prime pickings involved, the loot could be in the billions. Thus, when the schemes and prospects of elections victory receded more and more, the focus was on carving out space to take care of self, which I believe is what happened.

My second thought is that some of the audits of state agencies (the scorned witch squad and witch hunt) furnished proofs of the pillaging of the Treasury. So why is the PPP government not doing anything, given that it supposedly hated adversary, the PNC-APNU-AFC and others consortium, was caught in the act and, hence, ripe for the beheading? That is a very relevant question, which bolsters the third thought swirling.

Is it that the crafty PPP leadership has decided to use the evidence it has in hand of skullduggery to keep the opposition tied up in knots? With this Sword of Damocles brandished over its head, the opposition is held hostage, as good as crippled, and utterly useless as a political presence. Moreover, it is no longer an inspiration to the bulk of its supporters; or has any current meaning for a lot of larger Guyana.

That is the now incontestable reality, isn’t it? When this country needs a viable, in-the-face opposition, it has what it has, which is a shadow of a shadow. Friday’s farce of a press conference offers proof of more dodges. For its part, the PPP, though its savvy VP, cannot speak about oil for fear of giving up the goose; and the Opposition PNC would not speak because that will breach shady unofficial oil partnerships with the PPP, which would also expose its own. From this, I progress to my fourth thought and to the one place where all roads end. The opposition is not totally handicapped, far from it. Indeed, I believe that what the opposition has is compelling; it is about the PPP’s machinations with Guyana’s oil wealth in general; and those oil blocks under sharp scrutiny. The opposition knows something (I give it that), but it ain’t saying nuthin’. I believe that the opposition possesses what rattles and could expose the PPP for the skullduggeries committed. But it does nothing. The trick and key are to say and do nothing in the public domain, but wield a bludgeon on the inside.

As I proceed, I say this without fear of revocation: the coalition cluster of comrades “cannot not” know nothing. Apologies for the “Brooklynese” and Creole. For emphasis, and contrary to what the Opposition Leader asserts and attests to publicly, his party knows something on the oil transactions. I think this could take the PPP out; or take the opposition’s disillusioned people out in the open. In all this, I detect a political Mexican standoff, in that both the PPP and APNU have nuclear missiles trained at each other. It is a situation of MAD, meaning Mutually Assured Destruction, which my American fellows should appreciate.

Because of what it has, the opposition is in a bargaining position. Not for Guyana’s interests; but splendidly for itself, specifically top tier insiders. Matters reduce to a case of elections secrets versus oil secrets. Good ole political horse-trading is what I term this. It confirms that the leading lights in the PPP and APNU are all thoroughly diseased with insatiable greed and pathological criminality, rank political rots. They cannot help themselves, these grasping failures. So, what we have here is a Machiavellian quid pro quo. For the simpler street: scratch back and back-scratching. It is why Hon. Members (an oxymoron) of the two parties go through with these stupid public charades. One is silent; the other pretends ignorance. Now we know why in both instances.