So far as I am concerned, it is inconceivable, particularly in the context where first-come-first-served is the order of the day, that about two days after you would have promised to seat together about fifty relatively important persons at a public event like the Golden Jubilee flag-raising ceremony, you would not have cordoned off a designated section. But whether or not what happened to the PPP/C Members of Parliament at the ceremony was deliberate or just gross mismanagement, it has certainly provided more grist to the PPP/C’s propaganda mill, which has historically presented the PNC as vindictive and spiteful.
Of course, I understand that in our ethnic environment, in terms of political support this event would not matter one jot. Indeed, I have argued elsewhere (Dear PPP, No one cares! SN 27/05/2015) that since ethnic mobilisation in one community tends to benefit the ethnic entrepreneurs in the other, it might well turn out to be a perverse kind of win-win situation for the elites in the two major parties seeking to solidify their traditional support base!
Make no mistake: assuming that the regime did intend to embarrass the PPP/C, it did have ‘good reason’ to want to send a strong message to that party that it was not prepared to sit on its hands when the PPP/C has obviously been behind the Indo-Guyanese boycott of the jubilee celebrations. After all, the coalition has been expending much political capital on its programme to achieve social cohesion, national unity, etc., for which a united jubilee celebration would have, at least optically, been an