Guyana elections and the love of money and power

THE EDITOR: Political power puffs up an individual. It sweetens a person. Once acquired, power is not easy to relinquish. Power and wealth are natural bedfellows. The rich enjoy their money because they understand that with wealth comes control. They can buy anything.

They are aware that their high net worth confers on them an ability to exercise control over others. How much more dangerous then, is political power? A man can go from being an unknown, a zero to a superhero overnight. That must be an intoxicating high. At least those who have labored for their riches – and I use the verb guardedly – usually take some time to amass their billions.

An aspiring politician can feel that sense of power (literally) overnight! Is it any wonder then that men become sick with power? To let go of a position of control does not come easily. It creates a searing tabanca that must be an intolerable affliction.

I see this reality in Guyana. The tabanca has been made worse by the ethnic polarity that exists in that country. Granger’s government could not survive a vote of no-confidence in Parliament, and yet he chose to cling to power. Not even the much-vaunted CCJ was a collective man enough to cause him to budge.

Now an election has been called, and there has been an inexplicable delay in publishing official results. So much so that Owen Arthur has had to work extra hard at his job as Chairperson of the Commonwealth Observer group spearheading the observation of that country’s electoral process. Let us learn well from what is unfolding in that country. Let us not be caught with our pants down at the upcoming general election.

Money – or rather the inordinate love of the thing – like the lure of power, causes rational men to sell their souls. African, Indian, Syrian, Chinese, Caucasian...all are welcome to run my country. All they have to do is to seek the interest of Trinidad and Tobago as their priority. I wonder how many of us think that Chief Rowley, now enjoying a second carnival in Ghana, might be serious about his job?

STEVE SMITH

e-mail