OPINION: Ali’s One Guyana platform on road to failure

Last Updated on Saturday, 9 May 2026, 9:06 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

One Guyana is key to unity.  If every word that Pres Ali shared with Guyanese was a dollar, they would all be millionaires.  And, if he would only make good on what he pretends to be in love with, Guyanese would be multimillionaires.

What has Pres. Ali’s government done for unity?  Unmoor it, make a football out of it, stuff it into the mouths of citizens.  People in the public service removed and replaced.  One kind of people knocked out; another kind rolled out.  Ergo, the One Guyana people prioritized by the PPP Govt and given pride of place.  There was the EPA and Adams.  The GPF and Commander Williams.  Must be some foul winds around them, lashed them with the One Guyana treatment.  Look who succeeds in getting raised in this country.  Sure, there are those looking like Adams and Williams.  Except that their own people disown them.  From time immemorial, the various tribes have recoiled from those who betrayed the past and bartered the future for a bucket of cheap slop, demon rum, the loss of character first, then identity next.

For reasons that thrill only he, Pres Ali believes that parading a few faces, and pushing up self-enrichers, presents the perfect picture of national unity, moves others to believe.  Parade the kicked-out people from Mocha, sir.  Present citizens of the big city with reasons why their elected officials are sidelined and sabotaged, while leaving the same capital to deteriorate and disgrace all Guyana.  What is just another political ploy for the president happens to be the homes of citizens in Guyana’s most populous ward.  However humble and hollow many of those homes are, they are somebody’s mansion, Dr. President.  When a certain kind of citizen is shot (repeatedly and suspiciously), and those matters are papered over, and pooh-poohed over, then those injustices do not unify, they divide and devastate further.

It is inconceivable to me, but is this what the president tried so stubbornly to ignore, by dripping lushly about ‘recommitting to unity and inclusive development?  Pres Ali himself is a divisive figure.  A leader who generates resentments.  What is only reversed under inducements and other clever considerations.  Recommitting, says the president.  To what and for whose benefit?  Bad oil deal and rank US corporate dealing, there’s still enough millions for every Guyanese to feel and taste the healing presence of oil.  Oil their bequest.  So, why are so many Guyanese, Mr. President, so far from the tables of celebration, the banquets of rich collections?  How come, how could that be, Excellency Ali, when somewhere close to half of Guyana is hungry.

Unity is the key to One Guyana.  The road to hell is paved with the wreckage of speeches representing nothing but spitballs and air bubbles.  Say something, do something, sir.  Guyanese are weary, look critically, at political platitudes, leadership commitments that insist good is coming, while they alone have it good.  They and their One Guyana people.  To cut a fine point on this One Guyana masquerade, I think that there are significant strains of a divisive vision.  Those welcomed inside that special tent.  Those who need not apply.  Change clothing, change complexion, then come again.  One Guyana may be subtle, ripe with clever hints, meanings, ambitions.  It is no less piercing and searing, however well-camouflaged.

Unless Pres Ali changes course, refreshes his head, I regret that One Guyana is a damp squib, what has already fizzled out in his hand.  If in his own hand, then not much could be said of One Guyana’s limp, soggy, impact on the Guyanese mind.  Guyanese have had too many poor exposures with their politicians not to recognize a pig presented as a princess.  The president is recommitting to unity.  It says all that he did in the initial committing.  Flogging a sick horse that was already DOA.  Assurances of best wishes, sir.