A highly speculative contribution by Mr. Manzoor Nadir about two weeks ago provided an analysis in support of the PPP/C that is so surprisingly flawed that I hope that party has gone beyond this kind of thinking. Manzoor was writing ‘concerning the advice by the Canadian Government, … telling the PPP/C Presidential Candidate, Irfaan Ali, not to travel to Canada.’
He argued that the High Commissioner of Canada ‘was given a tongue lashing by the Government of Guyana over the Charrandass Persaud matter … (and) What we are seeing by the Government of Canada is the policy of appeasement to the GoG and possibly bowing to the pressures of the “A” and the “B” (American and British governments)’ (SN:2/2/2019). ‘Appeasement’ is going too far, but for me too, the Canadian action signaled an attempt at reconciling the fallout from the Persaud affair. But what bedevilled me for a moment was how Manzoor expected trashing the above countries was going to be helpful to the PPP/C? Then I hit upon it: it is the very misconception that has the PPP/C in the deep predicament it is in today.
Mr. Nadir claimed that it is not ‘rocket science’ that America wanted to see the back of the PPP/C government and that the British High Commissioner who ‘is the worst British HC I have seen in my four decades in public life in Guyana’ does not like the PPP/C either. ‘However, as soon as he (the British HC) saw the PPP/C victory at the LGE polls there was an about-turn.’ I have argued in this column that LGE do not have the value of national elections and that given the almost opposite motivations of the PPP/C and PNCR supporters to go to the poll, the results of the LGE do not signal a big win for the PPP/C (SN:21/11/2018).