The extent to which the President feels under pressure was exposed on Tuesday when at the opening of Amerindian Heritage month he launched into an address which veered from biblical admonitions on the one hand to Greek mythology on the other. While he did not name the target of his references, it was patently clear to the assembled gathering that the person he had in mind was Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed.
The accusation was that Mr Mohamed had used the relief supplies he had given to Indigenous communities affected by the MV Barima sinking for his own political purposes. Together with his father, Mr Nazar Mohamed, he is facing extradition to the United States on a federal indictment alleging wire fraud, money laundering and tax evasion in connection with gold exports, and President Ali’s charge was that his largesse in the North West represented “a ticket to avoid jail.”
He went on to say impliedly about the Opposition Leader: “They may speak the language of empowerment, justice and representation, but ask yourselves, whose interests are they really advancing? Who ultimately benefits from the division they seek to create?” Such people often emerged during crises and made accusations, the President said, but later vanished in circumstances of diminished public attention.
“When the crisis has passed, when the cameras have gone and the headlines have faded, who remains?” he was quoted as asking. One can only suppose that this was an indirect reference to the presumed extradition of the Opposition Leader, and shorn of its context it is not a question entirely without relevance.
Leaving that aside for the moment, it has to be said that the Head of State has lost contact with reality if he seriously believes Amerindian concerns connected to the MV Barima have anything to do with Mr Mohamed’s activities. Does he really think that if the Opposition Leader were not there dispensing assistance to those affected the Amerindians would not have noticed that the government was demonstrably reluctant to raise the vessel from the sea floor, and that even although it subsequently agreed, there has been no celerity since in its moves towards that end?
Does he really think that no matter who was dispensing assistance the Amerindians would not have noticed the amount of time it has taken for the Commission of Inquiry to get under way? Furthermore, does he really think, that Indigenous people did not notice that the inquiry was set up effectively in secrecy without the involvement of the Amerindian groups and individuals affected and especially the opposition?
Does he really think that without Mr Mohamed’s presence the Amerindians would not have noticed that the tragedy could have been avoided if government systems at all levels had been functioning in the way they were supposed to do? And does he really think too that the Indigenous people would not have drawn their own conclusions‒ as activist Ms Laura George has pointed out ‒about the value the authorities placed on Indigenous lives and their safety?
The President’s speech was altogether an unsuitable diatribe for the occasion of the opening of Amerindian Heritage Month, but if nothing else it revealed the extent of government anxiety about the Opposition Leader and his party. Since the 2025 election it has been freezing out WIN as it did with APNU in the course of the previous Parliament, but the capsizing of the MV Barima presented it with a crisis of entirely new dimensions.
It has, of course, resorted to its time-honoured tactics of harassment, including detaining the fast boat which Mr Mohamed had used during search and recovery operations and for the distribution of relief supplies. The licence for the vessel had long since expired, and while there is simply no excuse for an opposition leader ‒ especially one who criticises the government ‒ being in default in this regard, it is also reflective of one of the paradoxes of this country’s politics. During the period when Mr Mohamed was very much a government insider, no one in authority was concerned about whether his boat was licensed on not; it is only seized now when they want to stop his visits to the North West.
Then there was the arrest of MPs who were with him, one of whom described a filthy cell where she was detained. It seems nothing has changed in terms of conditions since the scandal involving the Brickdam police lockups many years ago.
The government has presented an image to the Indigenous people as well as the public at large of trying to exculpate itself for everything related to the MV Barima disaster. As a consequence no minister has taken responsibility, and at the same time scapegoats have been seized upon to carry the blame. It has charged the captain, first mate and loading superintendent with 73 counts of murder, something which not just the public, but lawyers too find untenable. And this before the COI has even sat, and to which the accused will not offer testimony for self-incriminatory reasons.
It is not a formula designed to establish the truth, never mind that President Ali in a fit of double think in his Youman Nabi message to the nation emphasised the importance of national unity in the wake of the tragedy and warned about the “reckless assignment of blame” before the facts were known.
But in his address at the opening of Amerindian Heritage Month, President Ali had more than exoneration and liability in mind. Since the PPP always thinks in political terms, the gravamen of its unease is the Amerindian vote, which is essential for it to accede to office via any democratic election. Freedom House does not want the sinking of the ferry to affect the Indigenous vote, and so the President spent part of his presentation itemising what the government had done for Amerindians, and listing what it intended to do in the form of housing development as well as investments in roads, electricity, water, education, healthcare and local village economies.
Delivering state benefits has always been an important weapon in the ruling party’s campaign arsenal, but it has never before faced an opponent quite like Mr Mohamed. He is energetic, he goes all around the country highlighting infrastructural and other defects on behalf of communities, and most of all, as a millionaire, he dispenses donations whenever he sees fit, most recently in the case of the North West. He is therefore seen as a genuine political threat, when other than in alliance with the AFC, APNU never was.
Prior to the 2025 election the PPP may have thought that by emphasising the fact that Mr Mohamed was facing criminal charges in the US, electors would not vote for him. It was proved that this was not the case, and it seems it still is not. His actions and financial generosity in the Barima aftermath, not to mention his offer to raise the vessel, will have enhanced his reputation. It is a comment on how our voting population thinks.
All of that said, there is no clarity about what will happen to the major opposition party if Mr Mohamed is extradited. He has named no leadership successor, nor does anyone know outside and possibly even within the party exactly how it will be funded if he goes. The President, as noted above, has accused its leader of founding WIN for reasons involving his own personal interest, and the onus is on him to disprove that if it is not true. All his money and community activism notwithstanding, there is no evidence yet that he has the intention of creating a new political institution independent of his leadership. No party with durability has ever been founded on the ephemeral presence of one man with money.
Discussion