…was the rig
This is being written on Independence Day. It’s supposed to be a Public Holiday, but over at the ACCC, it’s no rest for the wicked. The wicked PNC agents, that is, who’re diligently coming up with wackier and wackier daily “objections” as to why the voting process was subverted by the PPP. The latest came from Granger’s aide de camp.
The ex-Lt Colonel’s objection involved hundreds of random Presiding Officers at Polling Stations not properly stamping Disciplined Forces ballots before intermixing them with civilian ballots!! These PNC types must really have a thing against GECOM Presiding Officers for painting them all with the brush of corruption – never mind that most of them probably support the PNC. For the same reason that the Lt Colonel insisted the spoiled Disciplined Forces votes were for the PNC!!
But no one should be surprised that the PNC minions would act in this lowdown manner that confirms their unsuitability for getting independence! Wasn’t it their “founder leader” Forbes Burnham who rigged the 1968 elections – just two years after Guyana was made independent? He used to prance about in the uniform of a two-star General, even though he’d never ever even been a boy scout much less a soldier!! But the present army types lot at the top of the government probably figure that Burnham was signalling them that rigging was part and parcel of their operational manoeuvres as they moved up the chain of command.
They did get directly involved when they rigged the 1973 elections for Burnham – and killing a couple of civvies for good measure. Burnham, however, would’ve been very disappointed with their heavy-handedness as exemplified by their Mingo Manoeuvre. He must be ruing the day he selected David Granger to be his man in the army after sending him away to Mons. But what did he expect from a man whose most noteworthy quality was tattling on his senior officers? Tattling made Burnham move aside several layers above Granger from the army hierarchy to place him at the head, when Rodney was making inroads in that institution.
Is it too late to hope after fifty years of betrayal, the PNC might do the right thing?
Nah…rigging’s in their blood.
…things looked rosy
One of the most shameful things about our independence, fifty-four years down the road, is the bitter aftertaste of “what might have been”. What might have been if a less unprincipled cad and bounder than Burnham had acceded to power. Lee Kwan Yu wrote in his book “From Third World to First”, how at the time of independence, he envied the British colonies in the West Indies.
We had everything, he said. Resources, location in the west, an educated ruling class etc, etc. But as the years went by, he noted that while the latter were “educated”, they loved to talk more than to do. They were “men of words” and not “men of action”. He marvelled how he’d meet them at Heads of Commonwealth Meetings and they’d spout all sorts of theories of “underdevelopment” and “colonialism”, etc…but just wouldn’t do a single realistic thing to actually free their countries.
And we still have that quality in the present lot of PNC leaders.
Talkers not doers. And bullies.
…but not the end
But your Eyewitness is hopeful that this too shall end. He’s hopeful because he saw in this election enough folks from the traditional PNC camp have decided that enough is enough.
And have sent a message in the ballot boxes.
