I KNOW of no political perspective found in any textbook on politics that rejects the format that successful political parties after an election fill their government with people who are the quintessential pillars of the organisation. For the past hundred years, around the world that was the blueprint after elections were won and in the next thousand years that formula will remain valid.

There are two pivotal criteria political parties use to select governments. One is trust. You need people in power whose overriding consideration is the protection of the administration that they serve. Trust comes from years of friendship. The second requirement is the role party loyalists played in electoral success and the factor of legitimate expectation that is encapsulated in that role.

I now quote from yesterday’s (Thursday) editorial in the Stabroek News (SN). “Will party stalwarts, APNU crossovers, and entrenched allies occupy the most powerful posts? Or will President Ali reset the tone by drawing from Guyana’s wide pool of talent?” There are times I think that SN has the most ignorant people in the entire world who write newspaper editorial.

Can SN name one government out of the 193 nations that are in the United Nations whose government does not consist of party stalwart and trusted friends and colleagues within the ruling party. Just identify the country and when you do the research on the ministers, you will see that they are party builders and party architects.

The SN asked President Ali if he will have a government drawn from a wide pool of talent. That is not the exclusive role of the president or prime minister after any election is won. The government must be drawn from people that made the president or the prime minister successful. It is practical politics.

A prime minister or president does not fall from the skies and become the chief administrator of a nation. He is elected from voters and his colleagues in his party leadership spent millions of hours begging, cajoling and persuading voters to vote for their party colleague to be president or prime ministers because he is a good and better choice.

I don’t want a Guyanese who is the best engineer in the world to become the Minister of Public Works if he didn’t spend at least one minute, just one minute pleading with Guyanese to vote for Mohamed Irfaan Ali because Mohamed Irfaan Ali is an exceptional leader that will provide a great future for Guyana. Why SN thinks because he is the best engineer in the world he can just walk into government and have state power? That is ignorance of what politics is essentially about.

As I write today, the Cabinet has not been named but legitimate expectation, trust and service to the party that won the 2025 elections are indispensible factors in the selection of who gets high office. I have no doubt that President Ali will follow that basic, priceless rule in politics.
What is wrong with party loyalists being assigned leading roles in the government? There is no argument that can be advanced against that. It is successful election victory as what fire is to a cigarette. The point to highlight about party heroes and party builders is that once in power, they must serve the people and maintain moral and financial straightness.

Those are the criteria to be used when appointing a Cabinet but to cynically state that party loyalists should not be made ministers is not only stupid but unadulterated ignorance. I repeat – Presidents and Prime Ministers don’t fall from the skies and parachute themselves into power. Hard-working living humans put them into power by getting people to vote for them. Those hard-working party stalwarts should form the building blocks of government once success is achieved.

I would like to end on a light and factitious note. The SN points out that in the Cabinet there may be a few who should go because of age. I quote SN: “There may also be a few who are ripe for retirement.” I laughed when on reading the editorial I came to those words.

The last people that should talk about age and retirement are the Stabroek News. That newspaper has two persons that most definitely are the newspaper’s two favourite persons in the world – Christopher Ram and Mike Mc Cormack. They have unlimited latitude in the SN. Mr. Ram will be 80 next year. Mr. Mc Cormack is in his middle eighties. Should the SN retire them from its pages and look for younger minds? My answer is no. Age is just a word. But SN is not the people to talk about age and retirement.

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.