THE Usual Suspects, the Lunatic Fringe, the Mulatto Creole class have launched a truckload of complaints against the private farm of President Ali. These are comically farraginous accusations that it is difficult to understand who is saying what, and who is speaking for whom.

Who are they and where are they coming from? First there is the watching kiskasdee which is the reincarnation of the Stabroek News. The kiskadee noted: “There are innumerable intersections and conflicts between his role as President and his desire to simultaneously have a private farm. How all of that is disentangled now has to be deliberated on by the executive, Parliament, and civil society.”

Please note the adjective, “innumerable.” What are these numerous crisscrossing about a 70 acre farm the President of Guyana has? I suspect that they are the usual propagandistic outcries that go like this – how much he spent on it, how much was the loan he took out, where did the loan come from? I suspect this is what the kiskadee means by “innumerable intersections.” What makes these questions innumerable intersections?

Then the kiskadee goes into the plural again by using conflicts in the plural. The kiskadee says there are conflicts between President Ali’s office and ownership of his farm. Where are the conflicts? Please note the plural. Are prime ministers and presidents in conflict when they have private businesses?

Then the kiskadee says this farm thing has to be deliberated upon by civil society. But who or what the kiskadee means by civil society? Who are the civil society people that have to deliberate on the President’s farm? Does the list include the Private Sector Commission, FITUG, the Dharmic Sabha, the Indian Arrival Committee etc or the people to pronounce judgement on the President’s farm is the kiskadee himself, and his sidekick- the Guyana Human Rights Association?

The kiskadee says in its final words of last Sunday’s editorial (yesterday) that the country watches. Again, the question should be asked, who is the country? Does it include the hundreds of thousands that voted for President Ali? The kiskadee wants a Commission of Inquiry. So does Christopher Ram.

This is the same Ram that wrote a letter stating that not since Rodney has there been someone to excite people as Azruddin Mohamed. But Ram and the kiskadee never advocated a Commission of Inquiry into Mohamed’s activities when he decided to enter politics. The question is, is it comical to advocate a Commission of Inquiry into the President’s farm for which at the moment there is no paper trail of wrong-doing but not a commission into Mohamed’s sordid affairs?

It was the Stabroek News when it was alive that published an editorial that openly claimed that Mohamed’s name has been mentioned in the murder of Ricardo Fagundes. If Mohamed’s name was being bandied about in relation to Fagundes’ murder and he was under American sanctions and then there was an extradition treaty for him to be sent to the U.S., why in no quarter in this society was there a request for an official inquiry into Mohamed’s activities?

Here is Christopher Ram: “Where legitimate questions arise concerning the conduct of the holder of the highest constitutional office in the Republic, particularly where those questions relate to a substantial private enterprise operating in a sector directly affected by Government policy, those questions deserve independent verification.”

There are two questions that arise from this position of Ram. One is who is asking the legitimate questions? I have been monitoring the farm controversy since Azruddin Mohamed brought it up. Look who is asking the question. It is the very people, the identical people, that have for the past five years been singing the same anti-government songs.

The second question is why should verification proceed about the President’s farm because a select group of people want answers? What about sections of society that believe the President did nothing wrong and should get on with his work? Government falls, society collapses and chaos ensues when every Tom, Dick and Harry conjure suspicion about the Prime Minister or President and demand that there should be a judicial public commission into something he/she is purported to have done.

Ram ends his letter with these words: “In the new Guyana, where public office now carries unprecedented economic significance, the people of Guyana are entitled to nothing less.”

The kiskadee ends on the same note but who speaks for the people of Guyana? Who knows what the people of Guyana want? Those who purported to speak for the Guyanese people for the past five years were rejected at the last national election in 2025.

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.