OPINION: Where is Pz Ali? Guyanese have a right to know

Last Updated on Sunday, 9 February 2025, 21:40 by Writer

By GHK Lall

I understand that His Excellency, President Irfaan Ali is out of the country. This has been confirmed by more than one reliable source; a few are here in Guyana; a couple are in the United States. It is the information coming to me. There is a small handful of things that I would like to put on the table before all Guyanese. They are reasonable, even have the sanction of practice and, moreover, solid standards. There is comfort going to places that would usually be left alone, because they may involve anything that has to with what is official.

If President Ali has left Guyana on official business, the Guyanese people have a right to know. Not so much the issues that called him away (attendance at the UN, a meeting at the State Department, or a fundraiser in New York and elsewhere). But the fact that he has departed the jurisdiction is the business of Guyanese. Public travel for national business should not be a domestic secret, a la the relationship between spouses alone. I go further. Guyanese should also be informed, as has been the practice, about which senior government minister, would be carrying out the duties of president in the absence of the sitting one. There is nothing new or unique in what is being laid out before all citizens. It has been the standard that has prevailed for a while now. As an example, former president David Granger during the Coalition Government’s time in office had to travel to Cuba, and there were these terse information releases that kept the Guyanese people of his movement out of Guyana. Terse, but telling. In fact, it was for health reasons and Guyanese were made aware that then President Granger was on the move. If I may be allowed my two cents, I think that is the way it should be, whatever the matter, the urgent call, that mandated the incumbent Head of State to be away from Guyana. Now, this brings me to the second point that I wish to present to Guyanese. It is first humbly presented to the president himself, and to his people in the Office of the President.

If, in this instance, the absence of President Ali is for private reasons, which could be anything that ranges from the routine to the compulsory, the Guyanese people still have a right to be informed of the whereabouts of their president. Again, not necessarily the nitty-gritty of the president’s private circumstances, or state of mind, but simply where he went, and the human resource arrangements put in place to cover during the time of his absence. Human resource arrangement is my way of saying who is the PPP Cabinet minister that is performing the duties of president. On the issue of privacy, a can of worms may be opened, but I have a reputation for eating them uncooked all the same. It is not something that is looked forward to, but it’s not one shrunk from, in the least. Here it comes.

Presidents do not have private lives. On taking that oath of office, all rights to a private life have been relinquished. Gone throughout the tenure. No longer applicable. Do not exist. To put a fine point on this, the rights of the public supersede whatever rights to privacy the president, any president, may once have had as a regular citizen. The need to know and the right to know of citizens are not issues to be taken lightly. No combination of circumstances, public or private, should combine to keep the Guyanese people in the dark. In this instance, one involving the first citizen of the country, ignorance is not bliss. I would argue against that saying that what Guyanese don’t know wouldn’t hurt them. In this particular situation of President Ali being out of the country, and Guyanese being kept in the dark, is a no and a no, and can never be accepted by me. Perhaps, every other Guyanese may disagree with this position of mine, but it is where I stand immovably. In some respects, the presidency is the property of the people, in the noblest sense of the phrase. It follows, therefore, that the holder of that highest office in this land, also is a servant to the wishes of the people. Where is the President?

With Guyana never far from a tricky precipice with a covetous neighbor, the people are entitled to know where their national leader is, and who is continuing with the work that he does. This is not a matter of politics nor of debate. It is simply what should be, if only to provide some level of equanimity to locals, a sense of continuity, and all the Ts have been marked and the Xs crossed at the proper angles. I thought that the points made earlier were worth emphasizing one more time. To Excellency Ali, my leader and my brother, I extend every good wish, whatever took him to wherever he had to go on such overnight notice.