Dear Editor,
In a troubled nation like Guyana, at least half of the citizenry has become adept at filtering out what their caretaker leader David Granger says publicly. The most recent remark that media houses will receive state ads based on ‘fairness’ of reportage is risible and vile. The state-run Guyana Chronicle is the most distant newspaper of fair reporting but it receives the largest percentage of state ads. The Chronicle is a state propaganda outlet. The nation knows it, you know it, and so deal with it!
What is more taxing on the mind is that this individual and his gang of chieftains have their understanding and underpadding of policies, terms, and practices that are contrary to the normal minded. The word fair was used but it would take a mind reader to interpret the meaning. Is it a misapplication, a misrepresentation or an off-the-cuff utterance of the word fair? Certainly, the daily dose of misinformation from the Chronicle cannot be alien to the head honcho. Stabroek News is more than one hundred percent fairer in reporting than the Chronicle, hands down. On the issue of fairness, may I remind this man that he had denied Guyanese –mainly his non-supporters – the opportunity to go to polls before March 31, 2019, based again on his twisted interpretation that 33 is not a majority of 65? Would this behaviour be repeated? Yes Siree, and just wait until the final votes are announced from the general election of March 2, 2020. The denial to go to the polls means, for good reasons, that his non-supporters belong to a lesser instantiation of rights than his supporters and loyalists, a rancorous and rogue decision that has not only placed an indelible imprint on the minds of opposition supporters but also set the pattern for interaction between mainly Africans and Indians: distrust, distrust, distrust. It is my anchored belief, drawn from the evidence, that lower-class Indians, the sugar cane workers, will have to spend many years teetering on the edge of the abyss before they could move beyond their government-imposed economic misery.
There is also an emerging, evolving, and perhaps erupting narrative at GECOM, all related to the above, in the drive for hope and against hopelessness. From sunrise to sunset, no one is sure as to what is going on at GECOM other than hearing the echoes of a conflict-habituated and polarized institution, revealing structural dysfunctional elements. The caretaker government seems to have the upper patrimonial advantage, retaining its 4-3 status quo in GECOM. The chairperson does not speak regularly, au contraire, isn’t it? If you have not noticed, for about half of the population, and the opposition, the focus is on a fair and transparent journey for a fair election, and in so doing, they have paradoxically embraced GECOM as the “new” government of Guyana and the Chairperson the “new leader.” All hopes for change for them are pinned on GECOM and Chairperson, not necessarily on policies and certainly not on the current caretaker regime. They fear to the bone that the general election will not be free and fair. Sad but true. Do you blame them?
Yours faithfully,
Lomarsh Roopnarine
