ON one of Oprah Winfrey’s programmes she featured an American astronaut, Jose Hernandez, who escaped his penurious immigrant circumstances through his own efforts to reach the pinnacle of success. During the interview, Hernandez remarked to the effect that if world leaders could look down from outer space to be privileged a panoramic view of the world as he had done, then they would have a clearer picture of the world as one human village, and maybe this would help them to make decisions to the benefit of the entire race of man, rather than skewed to the exclusive benefit of their own nation states.
Dr. Cheddi Jagan had espoused this concept long ago and propagated the mechanism for this construct to be a global strategy for human development in his New Human Global Order, which has been adopted by the United Nations and is even now taking centre stage at various international fora.  This vision is Dr. Jagan’s gift to the world.
But each country is a microcosm of the wider world, with leadership portfolios in various spheres, and in a contextual way this observation by Hernancez could be applicable to leaders within nations.  Thus, many atrocities committed by leaders on their own peoples, causing much socio-economic dislocation and infrastructural devastation, could be avoided.
But then, such leaders would need to have an inherent love for their fellow man, a commitment to the general advancement of society, and an approach to a national developmental paradigm based on integrity and honesty, instead of egomania driving self-aggrandizement.
Within the Guyana framework we have leaders and aspiring leaders, and their acolytes and satellites, who use every opportunity to denigrate and derail the developmental processes of this nation, merely to advance their own selfish causes and agendas.
We are a developing country – emerging from the history of a plethora of destructive elemental forces that devastated our nation, even to the point where even the more optimistic thought that we would never emerge from the quagmire in which we had been immersed for decades – to the point where even the more altruistic funding agencies had practically written us off as almost beyond redemption.
Until Jimmy Carter decided, in the interest of justice, and in light of  the contention of Guyana’s supreme leader, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, that the PPP had been “cheated, not defeated” for decades during general elections in Guyana, that the Carter Cenre should use its phenomenal power to force the Hoyte administration, which is recorded to have been responsible for the worst election rigging in the history of Guyana during the general elections of 1985, to concede to having relatively “free and fair” general elections in our country after decades of PNC rule.
Dr. Jagan was vindicated and the reconfigured PPP/C undertook the gargantuan task of trying to restore some order out of the critical and chaotic national landscape then prevailing – in every area.
One of the more pressing needs was to reduce the crippling debt burden – $2.1 billion, which was stymieing rehabilitation and developmental works.
Dr. Jagan and his brilliant and trusted young junior Finance Minister, Bharrat Jagdeo, went into overdrive, lobbying at every conceivable forum for a reduction and/or write-off of the albatross of Guyana’s debt.  The international world responded favourably over the years and this, coupled with prudent fiscal management, has enabled Guyana to stabilize its economy, and even allowed some degree of growth, in less than two decades, to the extent where, in a recessional global environment where even the most developed nations are collapsing, Guyana has managed to maintain stability and sustain its macro-economic achievements.
The importance of this to the national economic health and the development of Guyana’s macro-economic fundamentals is being attested to by some big leaguers in the entrepreneurial fraternity, most of whom are not traditional PPP supporters, but who are honest enough to publicly recognize and appreciate the Government’s policies and strategies, and its willingness to productively engage in interactive programmes that can assist the private sector’s initiatives, especially when these initiatives are adjunctive to Government’s developmental imperatives.
The powerbrokers of the world are lauding our President for his LCDS, and the courage and leadership qualities he is demonstrating – enough to position Guyana conspicuously on the global map, with all the initiatives he has driven – whether the LCDS, whether in agriculture, whether it is a lone stance against a draconian regime being forced on our region through an EPA propelled by the powerful EU, which would have severely dislocated our socio-economic imperatives.
Our performance indices are climbing – slowly but surely, on global graphs, and powerful world bodies are demonstrating their faith in the governance of this nation, notwithstanding the odd hiccup here and there, by the sustained, and even expanded, support over the years.
Yet the doomsayers and the naysayers continue, unabated, their spiteful and jealous tirades.  In their attempt to bring down the Government, they lobby internationally, and within the country, against initiatives that would help in the development of this country and its people – even to the extent of trying to derail our border talks.
In efforts to foster the fallacy that they, or the parties of their choice, would make better leaders for this nation, they are not above peddling lies and distortions in attempts to drive their point home, or to validate their arguments.  But how solid is their personal integrity and credibility?
A cursory background examination of the characters of the detractors and critics of the President and the current government, including opposition leaders, would prove the faces behind the public faзade that they show to the world have satanic contours and that the lily-white gloves encase hands stained with, if not blood, then rivulets of tears of betrayed trust from persons who know their true colours.
There is an old Guyanese adage: “When you point a finger at someone, four are pointing back at you.”
The President is a towering figure in the global landscape, and each honour showered on him by the international community reflects on the Guyanese nation – as a collective.
On the distaff side, those who attempt to denigrate him for self-serving purposes are blackening the entire Guyanese nation – as they have done in the past, when Guyanese were relegated to the lowest rungs of global graphs, in every context, with dire social consequences for the Guyanese nation, who were seen as pariahs for decades by the international community.
The late Dr. Cheddi Jagan and his chosen successor, President Bharrat Jagdeo, have restored dignity and respect to the Guyanese nation; but it is the choice of this nation if they want to revert to the status quo of yesteryear.
Man is supposed to be blessed with intelligence superior to beasts so that they can make wise choices.  It is the individual who will choose to support lies, or the pride and respect of his country above personal prejudices.
The  PPP/C’s presidential candidate has said: “The choice is between progress and retrogression.”