In his recent writings, the columnist and Executive Member of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), said that serious political observers have begun to ask the inevitable question—how did this happen? How has the PPP, with all its recent political baggage, been able to pull off what is in effect a great scam?
Dr. Hinds said that one major reason for this development lies in the very nature of the PPP, whose leadership has an enormous capacity to convince itself that it is incapable of wrongdoing. The political activist said that this thinking is grounded in a belief in the party’s divine right to govern Guyana and in its chief opponent’s cultural disqualification from holding power.
He recalled that the PPP, from the first days of the new government, launched a race-driven “ethnic cleansing” campaign against the government and has kept it going up to this day. Hinds said that what is revealing is that neither the government nor its constituent parties have been able to effectively beat back this PPP campaign.
“The PPP took that line of action because it knew that the current leadership of the parties in the Coalition are cowards when it comes to addressing race in the public sphere. The PPP knows the political psyche of the Coalition’s leadership. They know that the African Guyanese middle-class leadership of the Coalition would never speak publicly and sensibly about race. For them, race does not exist because in many respects they are not directly affected by it.
“The PPP also knows that while sections of the African Guyanese leadership of the PNC are much more literate about race and racism, they have always skirted around the issue in their public discourse. In other words, except for a handful of leaders, they have been opportunistic when it comes to the issue of race—they acknowledge and rail against racism in private, but run for cover when they are publicly confronted with it.”
So, in effect, Dr. Hinds said that the PPP has taken advantage of the government’s clumsiness on the issue of race.Turning his attention to the forensic audits, Dr. Hinds reminded that never before has the evidence of official corruption been so vivid. He said that what the audits uncovered is what many Guyanese already knew.
“The PPP was so confident that it could not lose power that it did not hide its transgressions. So when a government has all that evidence and does nothing about it and justifies its inaction by hiding behind legalities, it inevitably loses the high ground and cedes space to the accused.”Dr. Hinds said that the PPP has been allowed to tout its innocence by the failure of the government to make and prosecute its case. The political activist said that now, the PPP has gone further. He said that the Opposition has all but turned the tables on the government—a case of the accused accusing the accuser of the crime.
“The PPP knows that this government is not corrupt and does not promote corruption. But the government has made the error of messing with some of the very elements who played games with the PPP.”
Dr. Hinds said that corruption is ignited not just by government officials, but also by moneyed interests who seek to buy influence from government. He said that the government does not have to necessarily play the game; the mere fact that it is caught kissing these moneyed interests is enough to compromise itself. Once again, Dr. Hinds said that the PPP has again exploited the government’s clumsiness “to get itself out of jail.”
“In the final analysis, this government has shot itself in the mouth by unnecessarily relinquishing political space to its opponents. These things do not just happen. Such actions by governments arise out of their own political dynamics…The very make-up of the government is a big contributory factor to its behavior. Many of the Ministers mean well, but this is the most politically inexperienced government in our post-independence history,” said the WPA Executive Member.
In the end, Hinds said that the nation is left with a government that is trying its best, but collectively has little sense of its historical significance and responsibility to the historical moment it functions in. In the meantime, the political activist said that the PPP has mercilessly taken advantage of this weakness.
“I am ready to say that to my mind the PPP has outmaneuvered the government,” Hinds noted
