Caribbean will remain a zone of peace, tranquility, free and fair elections

Dear Editor,
The CoI set up by President Irfaan Ali has just concluded its hearings, and will soon write up a report. That report will bear evidence that the PNC-led Coalition was on a brazen and unashamed course to rig the March 2020 General and Regional Elections. That document would bear multiple instances when the PNC took every available platform at their disposal to forge an illegitimate win for the party. They even petitioned the courts on numerous occasions to validate that fraud, all to no avail.
Minister Oneidge Walrond summed it up in her 2023 Budget Debate speech: that when we thought that rigging was a thing of the past, we were sadly mistaken, because the sordid events surrounding March 2020 and beyond had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the plan to rig was alive and well.
But, like I said, those plans were defeated by a determined PPP/C and the International Community, which saw to it that such a bold attack on democracy could not take a foothold here in Guyana. That affront that was brought on the people of Guyana had to be put in its place immediately, so that democracy could have a breath of fresh air again.
The same principle was applied when the people of Grenada were violently assaulted by persons who were keen on obtaining power, not through the ballot box, but through the barrel of a gun. Some spectators – and we have a few around here in Guyana – who are of the belief that they can take power violently, were shocked to the reality that it would not be allowed here. What they thought was a “harmless” exercise to wrest power from an old voodoo dictator, they were rudely awakened to the reality that it would not be tolerated here.
Whether in their mind they thought this was justifiable reason to take power by force, it did not matter; what does matter is power is acquired through the ballot box, and nowhere else! End of discussion! After all, we here in Guyana could have reasoned the same way as did the “revolutionary” crew in Grenada, having been burdened for decades by a voodoo dictator holding on to illegal power. But we didn’t, because that is not the esteemed way to go.
We, on the other hand, toughed it out the right way; that is, the legal way. We fought for free and fair elections through the courts, and with great help from the International Community, and we won. We were not intimidated by Burnham’s Voodoo, or by his rigging pandemic. All through those long years, we became more and more strengthened in our resolve to free ourselves from those shackles of backwardness. Quite thankfully, we were successful all over again in 2020.
So Guyana, yes; all of the Caribbean will remain a zone of peace, and one of free and fair elections.

Respectfully,
Neil Adams