IN yet another case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t, President, Dr Irfaan Ali’s responses to questions abroad about developments back home continue to draw blank-shot responses from an opposition party hell-bent on only opposing for opposing sake.

Similarly, this country’s opposition today insists on carelessly blasting foghorns in plain weather, loudly and knowingly repeating false claims of corruption without a shred of back-up evidence that can stand-up in a court of law.

As such, the finger-pointers continue making wild claims without presenting evidence, just as with their outrageous claims while holding on to stolen power, that they were in possession of Statements of Poll (SOPs) confirming the PPP/C – though in opposition – had stolen the election.

Two years after being forced to climb down from its high-and-mighty arguments and efforts to hold on to stolen power hijacked by party operatives within the national electoral machinery, the SOPs remain clearly invisible, so the PNC-R and its leader have failed to present what they so loudly claimed to have, but obviously never did.

And just as ridiculous is the call for “a credible international investigation” into undocumented claims and allegations only citing similar politically-based allegations already made without empirical or evidential support, to deflect from the demonstrated irrelevance of the PNC-R as an entity worthy of consideration as a replacement for the current PPP/C administration.

In two years, this PPP/C administration, under this President and building on the legacy of this Vice- President – and all previous PPP/C administrations since democracy returned to Guyana in 1992 – has shown what continuity means; and what it takes to ensure that the nation’s resources are properly managed with visible returns that people have been seeing, feeling and appreciating since August 2020.

Allegations of corruption feature in every society and related claims remain the main preoccupation of opposition parties and in the case of Guyana, those most accused and repeatedly found guilty in the courts of public opinion are usually the first to throw stones from their fine-glass houses.

After all, look who’s talking and pointing fingers today – APNU and the PNC-R, entities led by people who brazenly stole the people’s most sacred value – their vote – until forced by regional law and international opposition to the most glaring electoral coup in modern history (even compared by some to Chile in 1973) and worse than any previous allegation of electoral corruption leveled against the PNC.

Metamorphosis from PNC to PNC-R and APNU only reshaped their leadership’s approaches to electoral fraud and no number of wild claims and false allegations of any type of corruption by the PNC-R today can compare with what was witnessed in 2020, when the-then losing ruling party refused to bow to accept the wishes of the electorate and took all of five months to defy calls for it to accept its loss and bow to the will of Guyana’s voters.

No party or government anywhere has been able to completely root out corruption, but people everywhere – including Guyana – can ascertain what’s true and false, not only depending on who’s talking, but also on what’s not being said about when they were caught with hands deep in the nation’s cookie jar.

This administration will not take the bait and respond to the opposition’s frivolous claims and demands – like calling on the President to fire the Vice-President, just because the PNC-R says so.
Those alleging corruption know where to take their claims if they can prove their allegations, but until then, their claims will remain just that – unproven and unsubstantiated allegations by an opposition party that still hasn’t recovered from the hangover of being found guilty in Courts of Caribbean Justice and international law, of stealing an entire election.

The PNC-R and APNU were shamefully, but justifiably, forced by world opinion and global public pressure to vacate Government’s fraudulently-occupied premises on August 2, 2020, as dictated by the people’s votes in free and fair elections hijacked by a party always unwilling to accept the people’s verdict.

Guyanese will soon again have another chance of reminding the PNC-R that it’s come to the end of its road as a viable political alternative to the PPP — and particularly to this PPP/C administration, whose record is out and open, in plain sight, and continues being commended by Guyanese, at home and abroad, for ensuring the nation’s new wealth is shared in ways that people can actually see, feel and enjoy.
This is what good governance looks like!