A review of the 1997 General Election: PNC treachery

Dear Editor,
In the interest of peace and stability, the PPP/C accepted the PNC proposal to hold general elections with the use of an ID Card as the sole form of identification. This decision was fraught with danger, due to the fact that it was an unconstitutional commitment which could not be sustained in a court of law. But like I said in the opening sentence, “in the interest of peace and stability,” the PPP/C Government of the day acceded to the demands of the PNC. Hence, Election 1997 was held under the new law, that is, voting only by an ID Card.
As history would record it, the PNC never accepted the results of that election, and violently hit the streets again, although the votes for that election were counted and verified three times over. Their excuse for the violence was that the elections were fraudulently conducted. Now, you must remember, that it was the very same PNC who promulgated this law in parliament which stipulated that an elector who was eligible to vote, must do so only by way of an ID Card. So, to resolve this impasse, the Opposition headed to court.
That court case lasted for two long years, held before the present GECOM Chairwoman Justice Claudette Singh. Madam Justice listened to and scrutinized every detail of the case, before finally coming to the conclusion that voting with the use of only one form of identification was unconstitutional. In this regard fresh elections had to be called. Fresh elections saw the PNC losing in an almost identical manner.
Fast forward to 2020 and you will see the very same strategy being reenacted when The PNC Led Coalition activated the fraudulent formula again, the 2020 Election was free and fair up until the point where The Coalition realized that they have lost. At that point all hell broke loose as claims of fraudulent voting and ghost electors began to surface. Henceforth, The PNC’s Acolyte brigade at GECOM sought every avenue to sabotage and rig the system. They unilaterally rejected thousands of PPP/C votes, while at the same time inflating those of The Coalition, a deliberate and barefaced act, unveiled before an international audience.
Now, the lesson learnt from the 1997 Election, in fact, from all elections held here in Guyana, is never to trust the PNC, it is the most duplicitous entity known to Guyanese, hence they cannot be trusted. Right now, they are on a biometric crusade for voting and my answer to that is a resounding no! Let us stick with the age-old system of paper balloting.

Respectfully,
Neil Adams