OPINION: Agreeing with Mr. Norton, distancing from Dr. Jagdeo

Last Updated on Sunday, 5 November 2023, 7:41 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

The issue at hand is a big one and a bad one.  The issue is Venezuela, and of which I should not have to say more.  Mention Venezuela as matters stand today, and Guyanese should be of one head, one mind, one stand, and one voice.  I hear Mr. Aubrey Norton, Opposition Leader.  I also hear Dr. Jagdeo, Vice President and the Government party leader.  There is identification and embrace on where Mr. Norton stands on Venezuela.  With regret, there is separating from what Dr. Jagdeo chose today to mark as his priority when the name of Venezuela came up, and its people are mentioned.

The Opposition Leader has said that this is not the time for partisanship.  It is the right thing said at the right time for the right occasion.  If anybody dares to call the presently boiling Venezuelan border controversy ‘the right occasion’, then it might as well be me.  But Mr. Norton has his head in the right place, notwithstanding the flak he has taken from his own.  Though there are some grounds in what those who oppose his postures and moves contend, he was right to let those be relegated to secondary considerations for the time being.  The moment calls for, demands, the solidity of national unity, and every expression of its impregnability in this hour of turbulence and trial.  What the Opposition Leader did has nothing to do with nobility; it is the height of practicality.  For if there is no national unity on the Venezuelan controversy, then there may not even be a country left of which to speak.  One for his political opposition to stand in power over.  Some consideration ought to be given to that resulting environment.

I appreciate that passions run deep, and they rise high.  But the main political opposition in Guyana does not state where it stands in the most unambiguous manner on this most existential of national issues, then what kind of reputation would it be able to muster going forward?  On anything of substance.  On anything that has to do with governance, which has to do with the whole, and not a part here, and another part somewhere else (hopefully).  The stain and the stench of national abandonment, even national betrayal, for the cheapest of purposes, would never fade fully, if at all.  There is a time for politics and its culture of squabbling and wrangling.  Then there are those rare seasons that must bring to a different elevation.  I think Aubrey Norton scaled those heights, stands on the firmest of summits.

Then there is Vice President Jagdeo, himself a former president.  Emphasis is larded onto the latter office due to the expanse and significance of the issue at hand.  It is Venezuela.  Media reports are that the Hon. Vice President said something along these lines: ‘Venezuelans should be allowed to vote once they are eligible.’  Who can disagree with that, certainly not I, sir?  Shunting aside who is a Venezuelan and how if eligibility defined (I go beyond the book), I recoil from this development.  Eligibility and clearance to vote, at this time, Dr. Jagdeo?  C’mon Mr. Vice President, that could not, should not, have been a priority at this time.  Whether the issue was raised or not, there was only one answer that would be acceptable from Dr. Jagdeo: this is not the best time to talk of something like this.  Not with those warmongers marching around over there, and armed with aggressive intent.  Not with Guyana being made out to be a usurper of its own land.  Not with Guyana’s President Ali insulted in the rawest fashion.  Not even when I make allowance for Dr. Jagdeo that he may have been wearing his PPP General Secretary crown, and with an eye to elections triumph.

Though the former president is not known to be a man who identifies with sacred texts, I still persist in sharing this little morsel of wisdom with him: there is a season under the sun for everything.  In secular language: there is time and place.  Even with political calculations and visions controlling the head.  What Dr. Jagdeo did with that business about Venezuelan voting eligibility and authorization to participate in Guyana’s elections is tantamount to a man going to a wake, and talking up a storm about the necessity of insurance coverage.  How could Dr. Jagdeo sink to this deplorable state when the State itself is under siege?  There is nothing that could be more roiling, more divisive, than that at this sensitive juncture.

Another part of me wonders if the savvy VP did not engage in a form of reverse referendum to counter the December 3rd one moving along at top speed, as piloted by our neighbors.  Identify with here, collect a card, and make a mark.  In the cup, of course, where else?  Even when looked at in the best light, Dr. Jagdeo is asking for trouble.  And this is coming from someone who is steeped in the triumphs and travails of migrants.  There is always that attachment to the motherland for some.  I wonder if that ever occurred to Jagdeo, even if he cares of the existence of something of that nature.  How could Dr. Jagdeo?  At this time of all time?  Oh no, Dr. Jagdeo.