Dear Editor,
As the saying goes, ‘Mouth open, story jumps out’, which means that sometimes when one speaks, one says more than one is expected to say. This is so especially when one’s mind and actions are conditioned to think and act in a certain manner. This is so especially when 28 years of one’s political affiliation is with a political party which rigged general elections in 1968, 1973, 1978(Referendum), 1980 and again in 1985. To sum it up, the founder leader has ensured that the rigging DNA is deeply embedded within the PNC for posterity.
Hamilton Green, the PNC’s fossilized and conditioned rigger, could not stop his mouth from opening and spewing the most astounding piece of reminder to his erstwhile(?) PNC colleagues, that they should continue to rig elections ‘to save us from these devils, these bastards, these demons that we have’ (referring to the PPP/C). The message is clear and unambiguous, and no amount of white-washing would change the fact that Green meant every word he uttered at the Burnham Foundation-organized lecture to mark the 101st birth anniversary of Guyana’s dictator LFS Burnham, the man who not only perfected the art of rigging in the most blatant and shameless manner, but who pauperised an entire nation when it was criminal to have food on the table.
Even after his death, the late Desmond Hoyte shocked the world when he perpetrated the worst rigging in Guyana’s history. Hoyte was an ardent disciple of Burnham, and showed that he had mastered well the art of rigging.
However, not to be outdone, another of Burnham’s disciples, David Granger, tried to pull an even more blatant and shameless rigging in 2020 in full view of the whole world; he simply used a fabricated spread sheet which cannot be substantiated by Statements of Poll. Burnham would have been so proud of him, since there was no election day violence, no using of the GDF to steal ballot boxes, no stuffing the boxes with fake ballots, no gerrymandering, no fake names on voters’ lists, no repeated voting, no manipulation of the voters’ lists; it was rigging made simple. This crime against democracy is still before the Court.
Imagine a political party with this unenviable record would now want us to believe that a two-letter word, ‘if’, would change the contextual meaning and give the ‘true picture’ of what Green had said. Green’s statement should indeed be interpreted within the context of the PNC’s history of rigging. That is the sordid and dirty past and present of the PNC. It’s in the DNA.
The Opposition leader, Aubrey Norton, was correct when he said that Green has ‘the ability to choose his language’, and will not make ‘some wild statement’. Green believed that by using ‘if’ he can mask what the PNC did in all those rigged elections yet made his message pellucid. ‘If’ cannot change the rigging DNA and rewrite our history.
Rigging is the modus operandi of the PNC, since they are fully cognizant that they cannot win any free and fair elections in this country, and the 2020 rigging attempts had made even their own supporters contemptuous of them. The PNC’s track record of poor governance is an indictment against them.
Green is fully aware that the PNC’s rigging history is well documented, so it is not about ‘if they say he (Burnham) rigged elections’, he indeed rigged from 1968 to 1980, then Hoyte in 1985 and the infamous attempts perpetrated by the Brigadier in 2020. The 2020 brazen rigging attempts to steal Guyana’s elections was confirmed by a COI; and the Mahipauls, the Greens and the Nortons should peruse this document and produce their SoPs, which are still non-existent, if they disagree…
It is worthwhile to note that the Elections Reform Group sought to exhort the PPP/C Government ‘to understand the frustrations and fears expressed by Mr Green…’, thus justifying Green’s statement. Was it fear or a testimony or a suggestion? Should rigging be accepted in lieu of electoral and constitutional reforms? Is this the message of the ERG? There can be no justification for rigging an election. The ERG cannot be apologetic on Green’s behalf; he said what he meant and he meant what he said, no ‘ifs and buts’.
For those who have remained silent on this call to rig, their silence has condemned them.
Green’s advice, however, comes too late, and will only serve to further open the wounds which his Party had inflicted on this nation. It exposed his evil and devilish mindset, out of which he cannot venture. Some people cannot change, but get worse with time. If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behaviour, but will the PNC ever change its behaviour? The answer is ‘Never’.
Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf
