Mr. Travis Chase, in service to an unacceptable politician in Guyana, did what was required of him. Travis Chase is not a politician. He is not asking you to vote for him.
Chase has the unlimited luxury of saying anything nonsensical, unsavoury, propagandistic, semi-civilised, profane, comical, frightening. He is not asking for your vote. When you urge people to vote for you then, you have to live a life that is the opposite to Chase’s. You have to think straight, behave rationally, display leadership qualities, speak about racial equality, come across as a serious human that has a mind that is filled with understanding for the peoples around you and the country you will lead.
Three developments have taken place recently that should encourage you not to give your vote to any of the opposition parties. One took place on Friday, the other on Thursday, the one other last week. I will analyse each, beginning with the Friday episode. Mr. Chase screamed that sanctions are coming against some sitting Cabinet ministers. Mr. Chase was helping his political patron; can you blame him for that?
Opposition politicians ran wild with Chase’s water gun and began putting real bullets in Chase’s toy. It was a gigantic display of political stupidity and lack of commonsense. There are no sanctions coming against the ministers. But surely, the average person cannot denigrate opposition figures in an election campaign if they say fictional things about the incumbent. That is part of the game. But pick carefully the fictional things you are going to say.
I will offer one commonsensical example as free advice to the opposition. Go back in history and invent something against the incumbent that will not embarrass you. But how can you select a fiction that will make you look silly in days to come? And as the election nears the finishing line, your credibility will be lying on the ground because between now and the finishing line no one is going to believe what you say.
As it stands at this moment in the election campaign, the Chase infantilism has shown that the opposition personalities that want to run this country have no access to strategic thinking and are unfit to administer the fantastic economy of Guyana. Voters need to reflect on their stupidity over the Chase clownish act and vote against them.
Next is Nigel Hughes. I cannot believe Nigel has deteriorated so badly that this is the elementary strategising he is incapable of. Who is advising Nigel? In his latest campaign commercial, he urged people to vote for the AFC because the two major parties are crumbling.
This utterance makes no sense and indicates that Nigel has become a sad case of political aridity. How are the Leviathans disintegrating when Nigel spent unlimited energy the past three months trying to team up with one of the giants, the PNC? Had the PNC not snubbed Nigel, he would have ultimately subsumed his political—and by extension, personal—identity under Mr. Norton’s leadership.
Now, three months is just like yesterday. When did Nigel discover that one of the big two traditional parties, the PNC, is crumbling? In those past three months, Nigel was living in Guyana. He saw the exodus of top leaders from the PNC. He saw the stubborn refusal of the bigwigs in the APNU that governed Guyana between 2015 and 2020 to speak even one word in favour of Norton.
Three months ago, the evidence (Nigel is a lawyer, each lawyer has the same middle name – evidence) that the PNC was crumbling was written largely on the political map of Guyana, yet Nigel was hurrying like mad to form a team with the PNC, even agreeing to accept the PNC leader as the presidential candidate. This colossal blunder will cost Nigel some votes among the few hundred that he will eventually get.
Finally, a comical figure in the PNC that the PNC’s prime ministerial candidate, Juretha Ferenandes, says will become the Attorney-General if the PNC wins. I am referring to the infamous lawyer, Dexter Todd. Mr. Todd gave one of the most asinine exclamations in the history of Guyana’s politics two weeks ago, which the anti-government press has given him a free pass on.
Todd told Guyana that a team is here to investigate the Adriana Younge death, but the identity of the team members cannot be revealed. A ghost team will be asking questions of real policemen and civilians about how Adriana Younge died. Seriously, can you give your vote to such a foolish man? I sincerely hope not!
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.