HERE’S a tragic irony of our Guyanese body politic: in the era of free and fair elections, we saw two terms of office for Government cut short, with a hostile Opposition triggering both terminations; while, incredibly, in the era of rigged elections dictatorship, lasting 28 years, Guyana never once saw a single term of office for Government cut short. In fact, one dictatorship government saw its term of office extended by two years, from 1990 to 1992, the five-year term running on for seven years.In the era of free and fair elections, Guyanese enjoyed leadership from four Presidents, over a 22 year period. In the era of rigged elections dictatorship, Guyanese saw two Presidents, lasting 28 years. In fact, the government of Desmond Hoyte, who retained the Presidency after the rigged elections of 1985, was extended by two years, albeit to facilitate the Jimmy Carter-brokered democracy deal that ended the dictatorship.

We ignore this revealing irony, but we should see the lesson inherent in considering what such a thing means.
How could we so callously terminate a freely and fairly elected Government, without consideration for the fact that it constitutionally won national and regional elections? We saw the Opposition hijack two terms of Government, tossing legitimate Presidents from office.
In 1998, President Janet Jagan gave in to Opposition hostility to terminate her Presidency from its constitutional five-year term to a mere two-year span.
Now, President Donald Ramotar has dissolved the 10th Parliament, just three years into his legal five year term of office, because the Opposition’s hostile confrontations caused an unworkable political atmosphere.
One cannot help but sympathise with the ruling party for suffering a loss of five years of governance, with the two terminations. This is grossly unfair, and unheard of around the world.
Yet, no one took the Opposition to task for this dictatorial act, for such nasty hostility against our freely and fairly elected Government. Our private newspapers and national media and public commentators never analysed this grave anomaly of our body politic.
We would expect current Opposition Leader, Brigadier David Granger, to act with wisdom, a pure heart and authentic care for the Guyanese people, in recognising that the Opposition’s hostility against this ruling party is unfair and lacks the fundamentals of our democratic ideals: we cannot operate a democracy if we keep harassing our freely and fairly elected governments, and terminating governance for any trumped up reason.
The Opposition attack against late President Janet Jagan must have been bitter for her. She left her family and life in the United States to join the people of British Guiana in the 1940’s, contributing and dedicating her all for us to become a free people, first from Colonialism, and then from the rigged dictatorship of the People’s National Congress (PNC).
When she got elected as President in an overwhelming majority at the 1998 regional and national elections, after Dr. Cheddi Jagan passed away, the Guyanese political Opposition turned on her with a vicious, monstrous rage, forcing her to terminate her Presidency and turning it over to Bharrat Jagdeo, who himself in turn suffered a barrage of attacks and criticisms from forces hostile to the ruling party.
The ruling People’s Progressive Party today must draw and generate our sympathy and understanding. Party stalwarts like General Secretary Clement Rohee and President Donald Ramotar fought long and hard, for decades, to free our nation. And once the Party secured its goal of freeing the nation from a draconian dictatorship, its leaders saw a nasty, hostile, prolonged battle against its governments.
Forgetting the absolute socio-economic and institutional collapse Guyana suffered in the period from Independence to 1992, when we descended to the worst corrupt country in the Western Hemisphere, and with gross poverty sinking us to Haiti’s level, the hostile Opposition proceeded to storm freely and fairly elected administrations with verbal abuse, allegations of corruption – ignoring the source of our culture of national corruption – and an utter tearing down of development projects.
Is it fair what Janet Jagan suffered in her last days in this nation she adopted and loved and sweated her life for? Is it fair for President Donald Ramotar to face such insane opposition to each and every move he makes?
Of course the attacks pour out mercilessly on every leader of a freely and fairly elected government this nation elects to office. It started in the 1950’s, when Colonial leaders removed our Government, and continued from Janet Jagan to now. Yet, the dictatorship administration governed without interruption for 28 years. We must recognise this historical pattern, and work hard to correct it.
The attacks on Bharrat Jagdeo, whatever his faults and shortcomings, show how desperate Opposition forces work to belittle and, it seems, try its best to dismantle our freely and fairly elected governments.
It’s one thing to act as a watchdog over affairs of public administration, and to oppose from a constructive, national-developmental standpoint. It’s quite another thing to tear down freely and fairly elected governments.
Unwittingly, the Opposition may be ganging up to stifle democratic expression of governance in Guyana, and that’s a scary consideration.
Guyanese cherish our democratic ideals. We fought long and hard to be where we’re at today. And for a few discontents and disgruntled folks to hold our nation at ransom, and for them to stifle our freely and fairly elected governments at every turn, is not only grotesque and ugly, but also a violation of our Government’s right to govern free from harassment and unfair tearing down.
What’s the solution to this state of play?
Our nation wants Opposition Leader Granger to see what’s been going on, and to reach across the divides to engage President Ramotar in a constructive cooperation pact, akin to what Dr. Jagan did with Forbes Burnham.
This irony of our body politic reveals a significant truth of how our Opposition forces work to tear down our democratic ideals, and how the PPP has suffered deep historical wounds, even as it lives those ideals through free and fair national and regional elections.

by Shaun Michael Samaroo