…Local Government Elections
How much more can we, the Guyanese people, take on this “election business”? Your Eyewitness is as red-blooded as anyone else when it comes to the question of democracy, but Jeez…folks have to remember that when it comes to elections, Guyana is no cakewalk. At long last, Americans might begin to appreciate how we in this country feel when the word “election” is mentioned!!
Their entire country’s about to have a collective breakdown when they think as to what’s gonna be happening “the morning after”!! Half the country is seriously discussing how extensive will be the rioting (and looting) if Trump were to win!! And the other half’s discussing seceding from the Union if Biden wins! Seriously!! Does all of this sound familiar? Right!! That’s why your Eyewitness wishes folks here would ease up on these elections talk for a while.
OK…he knows that Local Government Elections are due by the end of next year. It’s there in the law, isn’t it?? LGEs every three years? But after what has happened after every election in memory, why do we have to bring it up right now? Isn’t the spike in COVID-19 deaths alarming enough? Aren’t the threats by Harmon about the Police solving the West Berbice murders enough??
There’s been that horrific murder of that poor 86-year-old granny at La Grange – just a stone’s throw from where Harmon comes from. Your Eyewitness was scared witless he was going to issue some threats if that case wasn’t solved pronto. Harmon WAS also going to issue some threats, wasn’t he? Thank goodness the case was cracked with alacrity! Anyhow, back to the alarm bells over LGE.
After the stunts the PNC pulled after the last elections, didn’t we all commit ourselves to fixing GECOM?? Didn’t the PNC also complain that the GECOM staff across the land on Election Day allowed “thousands and thousands” of dead people and folks who were out of the country, to vote? And made them lose the elections which Mingo and Volda already certified they’d won?? Surely, they don’t want a repetition of all those shenanigans again, would they??
Somehow there’s an assumption that we can’t have GECOM cleaned up AND have elections by next year. Why make that assumption? Once we’re all agreed that the Augean Stables at Kingston have to be cleaned, then let’s get cracking!! If we look too far ahead, we might step into the hole right in front of us, and all that!!
And as the clincher, we have it from no one else than Vincent Alexander that elections can be held next year.
Isn’t he the fella who runs the Secretariat? Or runs those who do?
…electoral reform
Here we go again. Another letter in the press from a bunch claiming to represent “civil society”. Insisting there must be electoral reform that places “civil society at the heart of the process”! The problem with these “civil society” types is they’re always self-appointed – and always drawn from the chattering class. They have some facility with words and believe this qualifies them to speak for “the people”. Here, on matters political!!
Thing is, we already have a political system that shows that when folks go into the voting booths to decide on the said “matters political”, they invariably vote along ethnic lines. Without anyone putting a gun at their heads. This, of course, is the big elephant in the room these “civil society” players don’t ever want to talk about.
‘Cause if they did, they’ll notice that NONE of the ethnic groups in the country can vote themselves in: they need help from across the divide. They’ve got to moderate their rhetoric – unless they intend to steal elections!
So, isn’t the problem solved?
…legal representation
Maybe your Eyewitness is missing something. Why would Lowenfield – through the PNC GECOM Commissioners – insist he wants to be represented by Boston rather than the Dominican SC the Commission picked?
He’s a masochist?
