A PUPPET presidency is a scenario where a person–elected or selected–retains a title and is furnished with all the pomp of state but who, in reality, has no power. That power resides with powerful interests in the form of an individual, powerful interests or a state that control every decision made by this person. That person essentially presides over a puppet state. Puppet presidencies and Puppet States are not new political phenomena; leaders have utilised this mechanism to follow constitutional provisions or term limits when seeking to retain power. It involves a process whereby the leader who can no longer serve because of legal barriers, walks away from power in fanfare, appears democratic and retires to his villa or mansion. Before this carefully choreographed development, he carefully channels power in the direction of a lackey over whom he has total domination and seeks to remain in office through this game plan. History is replete with examples, Latin America being exhibit A in this regard.

HOW A PUPPET IS CREATED
What gives rise to a circumstance where a person accepts the role of being a puppet controlled by an individual? In Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar,’ Scene ii, Caesar demands, ‘Let me have men about me that are fat; sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’nights. Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.’ Autocrats, dictators and authoritarians who seek to rule for life but are constrained by the law, prey on men who do not think much and are always asleep. It is on this basis that one can be identified or selected for puppet candidacy. Secondly, the evidence suggests that in most cases where such an arrangement emerges, corruption is at the heart of it. The intellectual author of such a situation normally identifies his prey at the very early stages of his tenure and entices him with largesse from the proceeds of corrupt activities. He keeps files and carefully documents the malfeasance of his target and uses this as the sword of Damocles that always hangs over the head of the victim. If the victim gets into office, the control is guaranteed, since his handler can destroy his standing at any moment. This is a key factor that gives rise to this kind of powerless presidency.

THE NEGATIVE ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF A PUPPET PRESIDENCY
Invariably, such political package deals are born out of the Machiavellian machinations of men with dishonourable intentions. So from the jump, a nation is at a disadvantage if this system prevails. It is seldom fraught with a vision or love for country; it proceeds from the greed and lust for power which consistently lies in a corrupt heart. Therefore, it follows that a republic is at a major disadvantage if this informal system prevails. A puppet presidency is inextricably linked to the prevalence of crookedness. Economies that are afflicted by a high level of unscrupulousness which involves the misuse of power in the form of money or authority to achieve certain goals in illegal, dishonest or unfair ways, are not capable of prospering as fully as those with a low level of corruption. Corrupted economies are not able to function properly because corruption prevents the natural laws of the economy from functioning freely. As a result, this occurrence in a nation’s political and economic operations causes its entire society to suffer. On this basis, the people seek to ensure that their country stays clear of this set-up. High prices for low quality, inefficiently allocated resources; uneven distribution of wealth; the low stimulus for innovation; a shadow economy and low foreign direct investment and trade are all cousins of corruption, which is in turn married to a puppet presidency. It is even more incumbent on Guyanese to be watchful of this political choreography since the nation is on the cusp of an oil and gas economy.

NOTED EXAMPLES OF PUPPET PRESIDENCIES
The puppet phenomenon is not restricted to the realm of the state, it can manifest wherever leadership presides. Be that as it may, the business of the state provides stark exemplars ad nauseum of the aforementioned. A glance at the regime of Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961) is worthy in this context. Rafael Trujillo ruled The Dominican Republic from 1931 until his assassination in May 1961. Locked in a puppet arrangement with the United States pulling the strings, the regime of ‘El Jefe’ was responsible for mass executions and most noteworthy, the death of 20,000 to 30,000 Haitians in the Parsley Massacre. Trujilo ruled The Dominican Republic with an iron fist and stifled all dissent and had no mercy on detractors. When complaints were made to the U.S. about their man in Santo Domingo, the likes of Cordell Hull said, ‘but he is our son of a bitch.’ In more recent times, President Vladamir Putin of Russia gave the world a naked display of a dance of maintaining power at all cost. Mr Medvedev, a diminutive lawyer who has known Vladimir Putin for two decades, was carefully manoeuvred into the Kremlin by Mr Putin in 2008, when the latter had to step aside due to a constitutional ban on serving more than two consecutive terms. Throughout his rule, the majority of people have assumed he was a seat-warmer for Mr Putin, who as prime minister still appeared to be calling the shots. The result is a full-blown autocratic system in Russia.

CONCLUSION
The puppet president keeps the seat warm for entrenched interests or individuals who seek to return to power. In Guyana, we face the scenario where attempts to subvert term limits are very much afoot. We must avoid this development at all cost.