OPINION: It’s about the election, stupid; to hell with renegotiation

Last Updated on Thursday, 16 January 2025, 21:08 by Writer

by GHK Lall

A citizen was kind enough to draw my attention to the last sentence in a recent letter in SN on January 15, 2025, from a seasoned public commentator. He quoted: “Any attempt at it [renegotiation] would be a prescription for losing the election.” I am thankful for that rare moment of extraordinary frankness. At a later date, I may be able to say with confidence that rarer honesty in local political discourse has become commonplace.

In my crude and rude way, I have written that the fear of renegotiation, the resistance to renegotiation, by the PPP Government has to do with its calculation of how power could be lost. There is a habit in this country that democracy prevails, and the people vote a government into office. The explorers deep below the sand conveniently forget to mention, give weight, to the Americans. How much they have impacted Guyanese elections. How much they have never been less than uninvolved in the outcome of most, if not all, elections in this country, post-1957 to until as recent as 2020. The trend is expected to continue in 2025, which was what that veteran public political presence in this country openly admitted. The fact that this citizen is paid by the government, is an in-house counselor to President Ali, makes his public admission all the more authoritative.

Thus, I assert [as I always have] that the issue is not about renegotiation. It is about the elections. For emphasis, for the greatest unambiguity, what was laid bare before all Guyanese is that the supremacy of elections victory will always come before this dangerous matter of renegotiation of the 2016 Exxon oil contract. The admission could not have been clearer, starker. After all, the arguments about economic consequence to Exxon, the reputation of this Republic, and the investor climate that could be poisoned because of renegotiation, the truth is now before all Guyanese. Elections success, it is.

If even thinking about renegotiation represents elections self-defeat, then talking about it, pushing for it to come to the table of conversation rises to the level of political kiss of death for the People’s Progressive Party. I have observed President Ali verbally and physically circle around renegotiation, as though it is some vicious, deranged pit bull. I have said repeatedly to the Guyanese public that there is a man living in mortal dread of power being wrenched from his hands. I have listened sparsely to the Hon. Vice President, Dr. Jagdeo, as he carefully selects his words, as though each one would cost him a fortune if renegotiation were to be made the linchpin of the PPP Government’s endeavors. Indeed, an irreplaceable political fortune would be lost. For a man who lusts after power with uncontrolled abandon, there is appreciation of the hard, irreconcilable conflict between renegotiation of the Exxon contract and winning the 2025 elections. And when the Hon. Attorney General, Dr. Anil Nandlall, climbs on any horse, beats a hasty path to the courts, by the side of Exxon against the Guyanese people’s interests (even their safety), then renegotiation is as good as dead an issue with the PPP Government and its leaders.

The people elected to represent the people fail to do so with all their strength, and all the facilities at their disposal. But they are so craven that they want to hold onto to power, so that they can stand with Exxon and run a shaft up the Guyanese people. In Guyana, elections are the alpha and omega of political existence, which is accepted as the norm. So when renegotiation of an oil contract collides with the immovable superiority of elections, then the Guyanese electorate have the clearest idea of who is for their welfare. Citizens are also enlightened about who is for those who tricked them in 2016 and continues to do in an endless array of secret ways. It is a tragic irony that the 2016 Exxon contract that the PPP itself once denounced as a ‘crime’ now stands consecrated in its heart.

Elections make politicians sell their souls. Elections here incite men to shed their self-respect, discard their principles (such as those were). Elections have made men barter in blood and fire, which memory will not let forget. Elections now inspire the PPP Government and its leaders to deal in a twisted manner with the greatest prize of Guyanese. Elections degrade Guyanese precious oil patrimony to a distant second place, if not lower. Winning elections by any means and at all costs incentivize Guyana’s political leaders to sell a country. Since renegotiation of the Exxon contract must be sacrificed for political victory, then that it must be. After all the sophisticated legal interpretations and sleek political postures of the PPP Government, this is what renegotiation is all about, where it terminates on a journey that never was going to get started, anyway. They themselves said so, not I. The day that I must be like this, earn a dollar this way, that is the day when life is not worth living. Some are better than I at this: they can face the world living as they are.