Dear Editor,
The corruption and abuse of power in Guyana is not much different from what takes place in Burma or Myanmar. Guyana has not reached the level of closing down the independent media or murdering political opponents or locking them up as in Myanmar. But there is widespread fear among the population of the leadership of the party. Everyone in Guyana is expected to automatically fall in line with the announced and unannounced dictates of the leadership of the government. And everyone knows the leadership is the Vice President and the President, and also in that order. If you defy them, critique them, you are marked, targeted, and victimised and trolls come after you on social media if not also in the two newspapers aligned with the ruling party. Denial of contracts, termination of jobs, re-assignments or transfers from positions or locations to incur hardship, as reported in your newspaper, and other means of victimisation are used to bring people in line. Fall in line or suffer the consequences – hallmark of authoritarianism!
The US$50 M lavish wedding of the ruler of Burma has some similarities with the extravagant wedding in Corentyne also held last year. Where did the high government official acquire the money for two weeks of catered ostentatious wedding celebrations that cost over a hundred million, not to mention ownership of many properties (valued at tens of billions) as exposed in videos and of which you provided reporting? Government does not care about your exposure and reporting. There has been no query from Jagdeo and Irfaan. It has been business as usual. And there were no investigations into the scandalous ‘Su-Gate’ and Western Logistics, the latter purportedly seeking to intimidate SN and the free press as you reported. Why was the Minister not only retained but promoted? Who are the true owners of Western Logistics? Will we ever know?
As you reported, poverty has grown by 10% in Guyana under the PPP administration even amidst quadrupling of revenues and the budget over the last five years. But the population, including the poor, voted back the PPP into office last September. Don’t they deserve the leadership they get!
One can’t help to ponder about the level of corruption and poverty in Guyana and lack of compassion from the leadership for the poor, the working class, the dispossessed. It is so anti-Jagan. Jagdeo and Irfaan’s political and economic approach has not been defined by compassion for the poor or for welfare of country and nation. There is nothing altruistic in their political or economic policy. It is about self-interests and taking care of family and friends who surround them. They exploit an unsuspecting public that does not know better. Unfortunately, they cannot put their trust in a PNC opposition that has time and again abused democracy in order to cling to power as they attempted and failed in 2020 after five years of disastrous governance.
The PPP leadership of Jagdeo and Irfaan have no regards for those who built the party, fought to restore democracy, and those who volunteer time to get the party elected and re-elected. The duo and their acolytes are primarily interested in self-interests not the interests of activists and supporters and those who played critical roles to get the party into government in 1992 and again in 2020. If that is not the case, how does one explain their embrace of the likes of Kit Nascimiento, Gerry Gouveia, Freddie Kissoon, to name just a few, all haters of the Jagan’s, the Ramkarran’s, the Chanderpal’s, the Ramotar’s, and the PPP family. And supporters have noticed that only a few years ago that several PNC stalwarts, office holders in the PNC, were abusing PPP activists and leadership and the Jagan’s. And now those who abused PPPites are ensconced in the PPP, warmly embraced by Irfaan and Jagdeo. And those who embraced principles and fought for the PPP, alongside the Jagan’s, have been shunted aside in favor of rank opportunists.
Clearly, political imperatives and not principles drive or influence behaviour. The leadership uses contracts and appointments to reward and punish, irrespective of the negative consequences on the economy. Appointments to office are no longer confined to those who fought in the trenches for decades for the PPP but to opportunists. In so doing, the leadership sends a clear signal – opportunists are welcomed. Competent loyalists are not rewarded as happened under the Jagan’s and under the Ramotar presidency. Opportunistically leaving PNC, as happened in 2025, and embracing PPP is an instrument of political signaling; you will be rewarded with a position if you abandon political principles and your party.
The party’s traditional supporters historically feel the PPP will protect them and take care of their economic well-being. That feeling now warrants re-examination as we have witnessed in recent years. The supporters are badly mistaken. The leadership has been taking care of themselves, not the supporters. Irfaan and Jagdeo and a small number of others, their friends, benefit now but the party’s supporters will suffer in the long run. The supporters need to start re-thinking about their own self-interests and not the party that has been equated with or belonging to the small leadership. The leadership, their families, and friends have mansions and high-end vehicles, own billion-dollar businesses, travel first class, display infinite wealth, and have armed security. Do you? Have the supporters ever asked why they also can’t be wealthy and enjoy privileges like the leaders, the Ministers, and other ranking government officials.
The supporters and public at large must resist authoritarianism and combat corruption.