Dear Editor,
I called the State-owned Guyana Chronicle the APNU/AFC coalition “rag sheet” in an earlier letter. However, l am forced to reconsider my description after seeing the May 30 front page of the Guyana Chronicle with a screaming headline “600 not in Georgetown but voted” placed above a photograph of the protesters and a burning building in the riots in Minneapolis. The subliminal messaging to the supporters of the defeated Granger-led Government is unmistakable.
The fact that the Guyana Chronicle would try to link the just cause of the protesters of all races in response to police killings of Afro-Americans that has gone on unabated for decades and blatant racial discrimination against people of colour in many US cities with Aubrey Norton and the APNU/AFC downright lies of voter irregularities in the March 2, 2020 elections in Guyana reeks of duplicitous and reckless journalism.
The article that triggers the headline “600 not in Georgetown but voted” is fraught with allegations and downright lies orchestrated by Aubrey Norton on behalf of the APNU/AFC coalition. The allegation is a dog whistle to incite supporters.
In fact, this allegation of migrants voting by APNU/AFC leaders dismisses the Chief Justice’s ruling in August 2019 that residence is not a constitutional requirement; once a person is registered and on the voters’ list, they can travel to the Polling Station where their name is on the OLE to vote whether they live in Linden, Lethem, or any other part of Guyana, or overseas. It is their constitutional right.
In every election, Guyanese registered voters crisscross Guyana to go to vote in their respective electoral divisions; Guyanese living abroad whether along the borders or further afield like the USA and Canada return home to vote. Suddenly, now that the APNU/AFC has lost the 2020 elections, this is no longer acceptable.
Surely the PNC/APNU/AFC rulers can remember their appeal at the many fund-raising rallies it held in the diaspora for people to come home to vote for Granger in 2015. Surely they can remember the huge numbers of Guyanese it financed to come home to vote in those same elections?
The lead up to the March 2, 2020 elections was no different. The APNU/AFC coalition made the same appeals at its fund-raising events in the USA and in other countries for people in the diaspora to return home and vote. The PPP/C and other parties contesting the elections did the same appeal to registered voters living overseas.
May l remind the APNU/AFC of statements they made in 2020 to the diaspora as reported in the media.
The January 20, 2020 issue of Demerara Waves reported “ The incumbent A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) is now eyeing overseas-based Guyanese to return home to vote on March 2, 2020, after at one stage insisting that the names of migrants must be removed from the voters’ list. APNU candidate, Ronald Bulkan declared this position at a public meeting held at the Kitty Market Square, Georgetown. “The next area I would like to speak to help any undecided that we might have among us here tonight and those who are listening in other parts of Guyana, those who might be abroad but planning to come back to participate in these historic elections, the mother of all elections because…the countdown has started,” he said.
In January 2020, Caribbean Life reported Prime Ministerial Candidate Moses Nagamootoo at an APNU/AFC fundraising rally at the Grace Christian Church in Brooklyn, as saying, “In five [campaign] events, you can see the coalition energising…So, we have to mobilise. Those of you who register [to vote], go back [to vote]…You have an opportunity now; and, do not let it slip from you”.
Rickford Burke, the organiser of the event is reported in the same article as saying “we cannot afford to have the PPP in power. We have to make sure every one of us in the diaspora go out and vote.”
At another fundraising event, Demerara Waves, on January 27, 2020, reported that Regional Executive Officer of Region Three, Jennifer Ferreira-Dougall, Director General, Office of the President, Joseph Harmon, Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson, and Director General, Civil Aviation Authority, Egbert Field, Trevor Benn Commissioner of Lands and Surveys, were in attendance at Woodbine Ballroom in Brooklyn. Addressing the meeting, Chairman of the PNCR’s New York Group, Errol Lewis said “Some of us, who are registered, are encouraged to go and vote. You would have to pay your own money but you need to be there because we are not going back,” he said.
So, Mr Norton, maybe the “600 not in Georgetown but voted” are your party’s supporters from the diaspora?
This article once again illustrates how dangerous and desperate the APNU/AFC rulers are to deny the will of the Guyanese people to have their votes counted and a declaration made of the PPP/C victory. The fact that we are now in the Guinness Book of Records for the country with the longest undeclared elections results is disgraceful and the APNU/AFC coalition is the only one to blame for bringing this shame on our nation.
I now retract my previous description of the Guyana Chronicle as the APNU/AFC “rag sheet” as too decent a phrase, the Chronicle has hit new levels of depravity and the phrase “gutter journalism” is more appropriate.
Sincerely,
Gail Teixeira
