THIS is the second article on the autobiography of WPA stalwart and former high financial tsar in the APNU+AFC government, Dr. Maurice Odle (see my last Saturday piece). Dr. Odle spoils his memoir in the politics section of his book when he provides the reader with alternative facts, and engages in open subjectivities.

It would be best to let Dr. Odle speak for himself, then attach an explanatory note (EN) to each quote. Here we go. Quote 1: Hoyte (President Hoyte) proposed power sharing…. Corbin announced a similar stance…President Jagdeo rejected the power-sharing idea.”
EN 1: This is misleading and needs clarification. The closest thing to power-sharing took place in 1985 between Jagan and Burnham. As talks were nearing completion, Burnham died, and Hoyte put a swift death to the process. Hoyte and Corbin were only interested in power-sharing when out of power. Corbin did not talk about it when the PNC won the 2015 election. Maurice Odle did not raise the subject when he became a financial tsar to the Granger Government after 2015.

Q2: “The situation (the 2016 APNU+AFC budget) resembled what took place in 1962 when the PNC demonstrated against the budget of the PPP government.” EN 2: This is a terrible analogy. The likening of the opposition of the APNU+AFC 2016 budget to the violent reaction against the 1962 budget is misplaced analysis.  Dr. Odle has a runaway imagination to suggest on Page 205 that the PPP’s confrontation against the 2016 budget was intended to be payback time (his words) for the PNC’s 1962-generated violence against the budget.
To suggest any kind of similarity is a crude distortion of history. I lived in Guyana in 2016, and I did not see any payback time, because there was none. The Opposition PPP rejected the 2016 budget, and that was it; Guyana moved on. The 1992 budget generated a tsunami of violence against PPP supporters and government officials, in which arson was widespread, and lives were lost. The process was financed by the CIA, which is documented in so many books.
Q3: “To the PPP, remaining in office is more important than the effective maximization of benefits accruing to the People of Guyana. A true Faustian bargain.” EN3: If there was ever a Faustian bargain in Guyanese politics, Dr. Odle was part of it when the WPA joined APNU, only to be sidelined and reduced to ashes.

Odle has to go back and read the book on Dr. Faust; he would see Faust would bargain his soul away for what he wanted. This is what Odle, Clive Thomas, Rupert Roopnaraine, Desmond Trotman, Tacuma Ogunseye, Alissa Trotz, Nigel Westmaas, Moses Bhagwan, Eusi Kwayana and other WPA stalwarts did after 2015. Does Dr. Odle have the moral authority to accuse the PPP of a Faustian journey?

Q4: “I, representing the WPA, along with PNC stalwarts Basil Williams, met AFC representative Nigel Hughes, then chairman of the AFC David Patterson, and Dominic Gaskin to resolve the matter.”
EN4: The matter was the AFC requesting more representation in government ministries. So, Odle was selected as one of the ANPU delegates to request the AFC to tame its demands.
But, in coalition, demands are inevitable, and the WPA had to have demands of its own when it went into the coalition. The PNC collected more votes than it would have received in 2015, because of what African Guyanese saw as the necessary healing between Walter Rodney’s party and Forbes Burnham’s party. African Guyanese voted for ANPU because WPA was in a unity sphere with the PNC.

But while the AFC was asking for more, Odle does not tell us what the WPA was asking for. Odle took on the task of asking the AFC to cool down, but the AFC was simply being faithful to its voters who put it into power. The WPA should have done the same thing. Did it? This question and many more like it are not in Odle’s book, leaving his autobiography hanging.

Q5: “Severance pay was made.” EN5: Odle is disingenuous here; he is referring to the 7000 retrenched sugar workers. How could Dr. Odle be so biased?  Severance pay was only given after a protracted court case. Dr. Odle knows that the sugar workers had to request the courts to force the government to pay severance.

In conclusion, there are too many suspicious manoeuvres in this book that lead one to think that on the politics of Guyana, Dr. Odle is too subjective. For example, Dr. Odle says the current government intimidates judges. But not a word of WPA’s support for five months of conspiracies to rig the 2020 Election, of which WPA was no innocent bystander.