I AM writing this column on Monday morning, so I cannot analyse any content on the street or publish any conversation because I had to stay in the line to vote. Then, the entire day I was on live television giving commentaries on the election.

Obviously, I have to meet editors’ deadline. So, today’s article cannot be on the election, though I rather suspect because of party contacts, there are people who know who has won and who lost the battle.

Today, Tuesday, I will know who won, but, obviously, it cannot be mentioned in a column that was submitted yesterday (Monday).
The election is over, and I hope people who do not have leadership qualities are never elected to govern this country. I have learnt a tremendous amount about people in the opposition who do not possess even an ounce of self-confidence during this election season by hosting the Freddie Kissoon Show.

The trait of self-confidence is a cornerstone of leadership. Any politician who does not have self-confidence should not be in politics, and if he or she is, people should reject them.
I want to publicise my experience on the Freddie Kissoon Show with certain members of the general opposition, and because of the need to enrich Guyanese history, I will name some of them.
Nigel Hughes. He was invited several times, but chose not to reply to us. At one time, he sent an email saying he saw his image in the advertisement, but he was not invited, and so we invited him and did so again.

Then, during the election campaign, two talk-show podcasts came on the scene. One was hosted by Enrico Woolford, another by Svetlana Marshall; both people were sympathetic to the opposition.

Hughes appeared on both shows, but avoided me and Leonard Craig on the Freddie Kissoon Show. Why? He knew he would have had to answer questions that no doubt he was not intellectually prepared for.

Tabitha Sarabo-Halley. She put down the phone when I called, but she turned up on Ms. Marshall’s show, where she faced not one pertinent question about her politics.
Timothy Jonas. He has been evading our invitation since May this year. He told Leonard Craig in June that he was ill, so cannot gave us an interview. And while he gave Craig that explanation, illness did not get in the way, because since saying that to Craig in June, he appeared twice weekly since June right up to last week on a podcast named GlobeSpan24x7, which appears sympathetic to the opposition.

Jonas probably felt he didn’t have the intellectual reach to have an in-depth discussion where hard questions had to be faced.
David Patterson. He refused to come on the show because he said that I wrote something about him he did not like. Here is what that something is about.
Two years ago, he came on the show on one condition, I must not bring up the topic of the AFC offering the Ministry of the Environment in May 2015 to a female Mulatto/Creole friend of the

AFC leadership who had nothing to do with the AFC at all. Because I wrote about that, he refused to be interviewed during this election campaign.
Aubrey Norton, his General-Secretary, Sherwin Benjamin, Simon Broomes, Amanza Walton-Desir, Sherod Duncan and names I cannot recall because maybe there was nothing outstanding about them, they all declined to be on the show during the election campaign. But they all appeared on pro-opposition podcasts.

When you have leadership qualities and you want people to vote for you to lead their country, then you have a gargantuan moral obligation to the nation to go out there and show the nation your intellectual, political and character fibre. I hope when the election results come in today, none of these names mentioned here are given a chance to administer Guyana.
Ganesh Mahipal, Dr. Mark France and Ubraj Narine are the only names in the opposition camp that I found to have leadership qualities.

They are opposition politicians with self-confidence. All three of them have never refused to be on the programme, and each time they were called, the response from each of them was identically similar.

All three appeared on the show more than three times, and during the election campaign. So, what was the common response among them? They all said they are not afraid of tough questions, they can handle such question, and they want the opportunity to speak to the Guyanese people.

I do believe that the parties of Mahipaul and Narine (PNC) and Dr. France (WIN) will not be in the government, but I hope all three should be in parliament over and above every other opposition politician.

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.