Politicians are  often described, among  other things, as   opportunists, who are convenient in their  pronouncements; and  hypocrites, because they seldom practise what they exhort their followers to do.
The latter, particular description, applies to the political  opposition as it relates to its response to both the cases of  Commissioner of Police, Henry Greene, and television  station proprietor, Chandra Narine Sharma, both  men involved in allegations of sexual misconduct – one of rape, against the former, and carnal knowledge, against the latter.
As is well known,  such allegations of sexual misconduct against Sharma are not new, since reports would have been made to  the relevant authorities by the alleged victims. But no  earlier charges had ever been  brought against the alleged perpetrator, as it had been rumoured that the alleged  victims were paid off.
But then more allegations, of a multiple type, surfaced last year, that rocked the nation, causing charges to be finally laid against Sharma, occasioning his incarceration for a  short period before bail.
Since then, this case has been called quite a number of times in the Magistrate’s Court, only to be postponed for one reason or the other. Given the serious nature of this case, the nation expected that it ought to have been a judicial  determination already. The nation, and the victims especially expected no less.
But there has been a  peculiar defence  by the political opposition on behalf of Sharma: That  all these charges have been contrived by political forces  that are designed to silence him, with special reference to his Voice of the People  Programme. They have referred to the many physical attacks on him, by  persons affiliated to the ruling party, as reasons for their suspicions as to the allegations.
But the high-voltage  Henry Greene rape  allegation, which needs no repeating here, has  occasioned an entirely different  approach from the opposition  – that of outright, daily   condemnation of the Commissioner’s action, and incessant, vehement calls for his resignation and consequent prosecution; from also  pressure groups whose voices were mainly silent during the heightened period of the Sharma rape  scandal. It must be emphasised, inter alia, that this public opprobrium against Greene still continues, despite a recent ruling by the Chief Justice  in the latter’s favour, challenging the DPP’s decision to recommend charges.
It is a given  anywhere, that accused persons are often tried in the Court of Public Opinion,  where being found guilty is mostly the norm.
This has been the traditional pattern followed, especially in the Greene  allegation of rape, the type that inflames public emotions. Sharma’s allegations, strangely,  seem not to have attracted the level and type of public scorn and derision  that are attached to the Commissioner’s  person, if only because of the conspiratorial theories that have been erected as defence by the political opposition and  some other sections of society.
The astonishing piece of contradiction in examining both scenarios is that in one instance,  that of Sharma, the opposition  took refuge in the dictum that his innocence or  guilt must be determined by law.
This infers that no one must sit in judgement of the presumed innocent, until otherwise proven.
But such an understanding was never really extended by the opposition,  to the Commissioner of Police, that  from the beginning demanded his removal, and prosecution.
Though one will agree that both cases have different circumstances, particularly as it may have related to the  Top Cop as a constitutional office holder, and that such may have been one of the factors influencing their call for his removal, how does one explain what can be described as their outright refusal to reprimand Sharma for similar circumstances?
It took a pressure group in a  recent media report  to enquire as to the current status  of the Sharma charges.  A far cry from the opposition that is still stony silent on this very serious matter. How does the opposition,  particularly, explain its  disturbing silence on the Sharma sexual allegations?