ON Tuesday, June 26, 2018, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruled by 6-1 in favour of presidential term limits in Guyana. The learned President of the CCJ at that time, Sir Dennis Byron, declared ‘Democracy allows for reasonable restriction.’

The entire case, from its litigation standpoint, was fraught with intrigue and subterfuge. The litigant inexplicably disappeared and the suspected proponent of this scheme denied having anything to do with the case.

Guyanese became aware of the fact that somebody was engaging in an unrelenting scheme to defy the idea of term limits with a mindset of holding on to power for life. The paw prints of this enterprise led straight to the leadership doors at Robb Street. The people of Guyana concluded that a former President was not satisfied with 12 years of power and in his hubris and self-appointed most enlightened one who is the only saviour of the republic, was determined to cling to absolute power. After the conclusion of this case, anxieties over a third-term saga evaporated; it appeared as if the legal process had shut the door on this issue and he who is drunken by power may have ended his plans to execute this machination.

This view was brought into question on November 9,2019, during an exclusive interview on Kaieteur Radio. The PPP’s presidential candidate Irfaan Ali, said ‘I would love to have Bharrat Jagdeo as my vice-president.’ After this development, at his weekly press conference, on Thursday, November 14th, 2019, the leader of the opposition stated ‘Ali wanting me to be vice-president is just his desire; I have not decided.’ These public pronouncements smack of a Shakespearean political drama and certainly reignite the third-term fears. Any political observer of any cerebral consequence cannot help but enquire, are we smack down the middle of a third-term conspiracy in the form of attempts at a puppet presidency?

The Evo Morales/Bolivian Example

Those who seek to defy the principles of the limit of power and are not respective of third-term limits would be well advised to look to Bolivia for the negative example of Evo Morales. He went from the hero of the indigenous peoples, the poster boy of the South American left to an asylum seeker on a plane to Mexico. Evo Morales, the son of a llama herder, won Bolivia’s elections in 2006; he became the country’s first indigenous President. In 2016, he held a referendum on removing term limits; the people, through the ballots, said a resounding ‘no.’ He defied the will of the people and petitioned Bolivia’s top court to throw out the limits. He succeeded and ran for his fourth term, he claimed victory. The people rejected his claims, protests ensued and the Chief of the Bolivian Army asked him to step down. He resigned and this completed the rise and fall of a South American leader with much promise. For all intents and purposes of this documentation, readers should see the nexus between Morales’ downfall and our political circumstance. Those obsessed with power normally try to fight the legal system to get their way and when this fails, they engage in Putinesque enterprises to seek power through the backdoor. Sadly, it appears, Guyana is amid this phenomenon.

The origins of a desire for limitless power

Lord Acton shall be forever quoted, ‘power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely’. New research is shedding light on the disease of power and why humans are afflicted with this condition. In a recent study published in the ‘Journal of Applied Psychology’, Katherine A Decelles, a Professor of management at the University of Toronto, concluded that people’s sense of ‘moral identity’ shaped their responses to feelings of power.’ Simply put, power does something to humans, some can overcome the trappings, and others can’t. In Guyana, there is no doubt that we have got to furnish ourselves with understanding this phenomenon, because we have a national political figure who is unprecedentedly obsessed with power. This comes from a place of megalomania that may be induced when one has tasted the perks of power. Psychologists also conclude that few can reverse this obsession without clinical intervention. This is another reason, one cannot be deemed as unreasonable if it is concluded that Guyana currently faces this sad state of affairs.

Puppet Presidencies and the thirst for limitless power 

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 controls every decision made by this person. That person essentially presides over a puppet state. A puppet President provides a mechanism through which there can be the backroom exercising of absolute power. Perhaps, the best modern example can be seen in Russia’s political affairs. When Putin faced term limits, he used Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev to keep a grip on power. The thirst for absolute power never stops or sleeps. It is no surprise that Guyana’s coming elections have this issue inadvertently on the ballot.

Conclusion 

The answer to the question captioned above has to be yes. This is the conclusion of every Guyanese. Men, who engage in these political shenanigans, proceed from the assumption that the people are stupid and cannot see through these connivances. It is for this reason, it becomes a national duty to ensure they do not succeed, just to prove we are not idiots.