TODAY should have been the first column analysing the world in the year just gone by, but when I saw last Saturday’s editorial in the Stabroek News (SN), I believe all my dedication to democracy over 56 years would have been wasted, if I did not attempt to bring to people’s knowledge the absolute political degeneracy of that editorial.

This is a vicious, vituperative, venal spewing of hatred for the Government of Guyana, written by someone whose emotional overdrive and irrational hatred should never find its way in an editorial of a newspaper. Read that commentary, and you’ll see that SN has literally become an opposition platform.

What kind of humans this country has produced that they can criticise the government about anything under the sun, except one of the gravest threats facing democracy in any country, the descent into open politics by the media. Only one other country in the entire world is facing a similar situation: The United States with the unbridled political propaganda of Fox News.

When I read that editorial, knowing that it will not be met with even one word of condemnation by those who sermonise us each day with their criticism of the oil contract and the oil industry, I know which direction my politics should go into. I ask again, how people in this country could find the temerity to lecture the government on the oil contract, gas-to-shore project, inclusiveness, accountability etc., and remain silent when they see the open, vulgar political descent of a major media house in this country.

A recurring theme of my columns since the PPP/C formed the government in August 2020 is that the government leaders are not going to concede any criticism and reshape a criticised policy if it comes from people that the government perceives as being irrationally anti-PPP and lack credibility.

You are a moron to believe that the government will alter a course of direction because the Stabroek News, the Guyana Human Rights Association, the Kaieteur News, Red Thread, Christopher Ram, Lincoln Lewis, Isabelle DeCaires, Dr. Alissa Trotz and a school of people like them have advised that the policy is wrong.

The government is not going to listen, because the government perceives these people to be driven by anti-government hatred and not the intellectually driven, independent mind. Why should any Guyanese listen to these people, when these people have not an ounce of fair-mindedness in them?

I assert, without hesitation, that there are vulgarities, indecencies and irrationalities in that editorial that no opposition party would display. Let me cite from that editorial, the stupidest comment against the Guyana Government that anyone can make: “The oil money has obviously gone to their heads, and convinced them that suddenly they are geniuses. What they really are, is plain lucky. It is worth recalling that in 2015, ExxonMobil had two options for its first well here – Skipjack or Liza. It was a toss-up. They chose Liza. If it had been Skipjack, which, in fact, was dry, Exxon would have probably packed up shop and gone home. The likelihood would have been that no oil would have been discovered here up to now, and these four might have been in photos sitting down with the IMF on another round of post-Covid debt restructuring.”

Guyana discovers oil, and the leaders of an elected government must consider themselves lucky because that is all they are; lucky because oil was found. Is Stabroek News a journalistic entity, or was it plain lucky? It was just plain lucky that Burnham died, and President Hoyte gave it a licence to open the Stabroek News. If it wasn’t for Hoyte, there would have been no David De Caires and Isabelle DeCaires and Anand Persaud. Can anyone fathom the logic that luck is what the present government owes its elected power to?

The editorial says that the PPP won the by “a mere 8000 votes”. The UK Prime Minister was not elected by the electorate. The Canadian Prime Minister has a minority government. The American and French presidencies have opposition majority in their parliaments. No party won a majority in the last German election. What is wrong with Guyana’s ruling party that has a majority parliament?

Read this from the editorial: “So it is only correct such expansive and fundamental plans require all of our input.” May I ask what is meant by “all of our input”. I thought I was educated, but I honestly need an explanation of what those words mean. Here is my understanding. By “all”, it includes the Stabroek News and the hater who wrote that editorial.

If the PPP government ever includes the Stabroek News in policy input, I will be very disappointed. More on that editorial later.