Nov 07, 2025
Editorial, News

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(Kaieteur News) – If every stream of sleek words was a winning lottery ticket, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali would have so many prizes to collect that he would be in paradise.  He spoke about his expectations for the 13^th parliament, and it was another occasion for him to put on his regular show.  Grand words that seem to project something visionary but, when examined against the record of the PPPC Government, it is same sound and presidential pageantry, signifying little of anything.

“Parliament plays an integral role in any democratic society. It is where policies are tested and where the representation of the people is given full meaning”, the president said.  This is from a president, where in the 12^th parliament the opposition often couldn’t get a question allowed on issues of great national urgency.  This is the leader who now talks about “where policies are tested”, when a motion on national matters, such as oil and gas couldn’t get a hearing.  Tested in what manner, to what extent, and by whom, are the first questions that we put before the president.  A second series of questions focuses on his statement about “where the representation of the people is given full meaning.”

It seems that President Ali is now immersed in the call of a new career, that of a storyteller, a wake house one.  The opposition cannot get in half a sentence on many occasions, but the president barges ahead with his challenge for representation given full meaning.  The voice of the people who voted for the opposition is not allowed to be heard at its fullest, and still the president persists with his flashy verbal gimmicks.  Do these blatant contradictions by his own government mean anything to him?  Is he not a leader who cares about the weight given to his words, how shallow he comes across, when the parliamentary environment serves up evidence of how the PPPC Government used its one-seat edge to carve out legislative dominance?

From that one-seat majority, there is now the thick layer of a six-seat advantage.  How will the returning PPPC Government use that, when there is little anxiety that any of its people will double-cross it?  The rules for the vital parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) were changed to block the opposition from moving quickly and efficiently with completed audits on the spending of taxpayer billions.  The cunning rate of absenteeism, the change to quorum rules, just about made the parliamentary PAC a toy in the hands of the government.  Notwithstanding those past realties, the president buries his head in the sand, and pretends as if they never happened, or that his government is not at fault.

Without a trace of embarrassment, the president shared his new expansiveness.  “I wish them well. I wish the Parliament every success. I wish to see robust debate, debate that is based on facts, debate that enriches what we do in Guyana, enriches our democracy.” President Ali has shown time and again that he has little interest in facts, but that hasn’t stopped him before, and doesn’t stop him now from uttering deep-throated sounds about facts.  Here is a fact that he may not like: according to him, ‘the PPPC Government has been transparent, is the most transparent of all.’  He conveniently gives short thrift to the actions of his Office of the Commissioner of Information, which have left petitioning Guyanese stranded and empty handed.  When there is little transparency from government and how it conducts business, then there is a challenge to determine how much it has been about accountability.

“Debate…on facts, debate that enriches what we do in Guyana, enriches our democracy”, he said.  For sure, debate enriches democracy, but he is advised to have a word to his party’s selection for Speaker of the House, and guide him on how that’s fairly done.  It is the same President Ali who has developed a reputation for closing down questions and conversations that don’t go his way, push him up against a wall.  That he doesn’t like, and then he doesn’t wish to discuss with the gravity that is due.  If the president is really sincere about parliament being an arena for healthy exchanges, he should set the example.

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