I HAVE argued more times than I can count that each time, people who do not like the government, put pen to paper or open their mouth and write the most bizarre foolishness, the government wins the battle of words and the government secures more support because Guyanese in and out of Guyana simply are revolted at the sheer nonsense that is thrown at the government.

Here is a quote from Henry Jeffrey about governance in Guyana. I ask any reader from any part of this country, and Guyanese outside in foreign lands what do they think of the sheer comicality in the following quote: “In Guyana, most of the values of a liberal democratic society, e.g., freedom of information, checks and balances on the executive, the rule of law, independence of the legislature and judiciary, principles of local democracy and focus on the common good instead of parochial ethnic appeals and coercion, are absent.”

If you are a betting person, then you will win handsomely if you bet that when asked to name a country on the entire map that has those features that Jeffrey says are absent in Guyana, he will not identify any. Let’s describe the identical situation Eric Phillips is in that Jeffrey is currently sitting in.

Phillips wants power-sharing in Guyana, so a letter was published in response to Phillips in which the writer simply enquired as to which country or countries have power-sharing. Brace yourself for the propaganda of asininity and the asininity of propaganda. Phillips told the writer he must check the internet and to face monumental embarrassment, simply rattled off his head a country that no sociologist or political theorist would say has a power-sharing government – the United States.

I have argued several times since 2020 that the nonsense these Afro-centric propagandists echo, they would not say to a packed audience during question time because they would be humiliated even by high school students.
Do you think Jeffrey would dare name a country that has those features of liberal democracy that Jeffrey says you cannot find in Guyana? Phillips may be a poor intellectual whose only recourse to intellectual credibility is to state at the bottom of his letters in the newspapers that he was a White House intern.
I have opined in these columns of mine several times that since I knew Jeffrey when I was a UG student that his scholarship was extremely poor. I remind readers that this is the man who wrote that the PPP won the 2020 election because in each of the 10 regions, except Region Eight, the election was rigged by over 30 per cent in some regions, and over 50 per cent in other regions.

And who did the rigging? Well it couldn’t be the PPP because that party was in the opposition and had absolutely no access to state power.

Expect more of this barren output from Jeffrey because it will not stop. And we have the latest – Guyana doesn’t have the endemic features of liberal society. Here now is my contention. If you name a country that is a liberal democracy, I will contend that Guyana in 2024 meets those criteria and in fact has democratic outlays that are more far-reaching than any country Jeffrey will select.

So let’s engage Jeffrey. Which CARICOM state has more democratic features than Guyana? Which of the big names in the G7 has a deeper democratic outlay than Guyana? Which NATO country is more democratic than Guyana?
Which country in BRICS has more democratic features than Guyana? In which liberal democratic polity, there are checks and balances on the Executive? Where were the checks and balances when in 2022, when the Prime Minister of Canada invoked emergency powers to stop the truckers’ strike?

Where were the checks and balances when President Macron overrode Parliament that was poised to vote down his pension Bill? Where are the checks and balances on the Executive in the liberal, democratic countries that support genocide in Israel?

We don’t have to make the comparison. We can simply examine if the features of liberal society exist in 2024 in Guyana. Let’ start. The judiciary has given some riveting decisions against the state the past six months, not six years.

An examination of decisions of the Court of Appeal involving state matters of a constitutional nature or matters involving pure politics would show that in only one situation was the decision in favour of the government.

In Guyana, our apex court, the Caribbean Court of Justice is far less likely to give politically biased decision than every court in any country in the entire world, and this includes the European Court of Justice and India. Guyana is a thriving democracy so let’s continue to expose people like Jeffrey.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.