Dear Editor
IT is clear that the opposition is not interested in ‘inclusive governance’ but ‘absolute governance’. This is not about accepting the legitimacy of the PPP/C’s Government, this is about the PPP/C accepting the Coalition’s spurious claims that the PPP/C not only attempted to ‘rig’ the 2020 Elections but actually rigged it.

Is the PPP/C Government at fault for rejecting such a factitious claim? Is it not the opposition which is actually rejecting Article 13? We must recall that although the PNC rigged all the Elections from 1968 onwards until 1985, the PPP/C in opposition led by Dr Jagan lent ‘critical support’ not only when our national sovereignty was threatened by Venezuela but it was an intent to support all positive initiatives by the PNC in favour of progress of Guyana.

But sadly, the PNC not only rejected Dr Jagan’s proposals but labelled him an ‘opportunist’. Imagine the rightful President being called an ‘opportunist’ by a rigger and a dictator. We must never lose sight of the fact that the growth of our economy, the eradication of poverty and the health and well-being of our people has always taken precedent over selfishness and greed for power. The PPP/C never placed power over the Guyanese people and Guyana.

The Coalition attempted for five long months to rig the 2020 Elections in full view of the world and until now has been trying to hoodwink its supporters that they were ‘cheated not defeated’ and they must take to the streets outside of Parliament to reinforce such claims. That is all the Coalition wants — power. At any and all cost; even the lives of Guyanese do not matter!

We now have a deadly pandemic which is slowly decimating our population and yet the opposition and its agents have failed to meaningfully support the government in its vaccination drive. Would the PPP/C have done this? I say never! The Teachers’ Union, the GTU is in the forefront protesting the government’s vaccination drive when it should give effect its motto of ‘Moulding Our Nation’ and support the government.

This is a great shame. In this month, to date 62 persons have died including a mother and her daughter just one week apart. These were reported as being unvaccinated. I am sure that many of these anti-vaxxers are already vaccinated. Those Coalition officials who went to the protest in Brooklyn are all vaccinated!

I was utterly disappointed when I saw some of the posts from persons who are teachers and they are peddling false and dangerous claims backed by videos. These teachers need to educate the people who look up to them for accurate information. In the past five months, YouTube has removed more than 30,000 misleading COVID-19 vaccination videos and in the past year more than 800,000 videos have been removed for COVID-19 misinformation. They contradicted the vaccine information from the World Health Organisation.

These include false claims that the vaccines kill people, cause infertility and conspiracy theories. Many included false claims on non-existent ‘cures’. This would have included Coalition’s MP Jermaine Figueira’s ‘cure’ of herbal medicine. Are our people aware of these falsehoods? Have our teachers tried to educate our students and parents about the misinformation on social media? No, some of these teachers have been busy on the social media sharing these videos to the same students and their parents.

There must be a distinction between issues of bad governance and holding a government accountable and those which are of paramount national interest. However, it’s a crying shame that the opposition in Guyana is using the COVID-19 vaccination to further its political agenda for want of real issues, when it should be truly supporting the vaccination drive. President Ali and his government have been fulfilling their responsibilities under the Constitution and it is time that the Coalition does the same.

If the Coalition chooses to be out of the decision-making processes of the State, then clearly the President and his government are not at fault. The integrity of the opposition is being tested. I conclude with this, ‘There is no better test of a man’s integrity than his behaviour when he is wrong’.

Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf