Tomorrow is October 5th – a date synonymous with the “return of free and fair elections” to Guyana after the 28-year-long darkness of dictatorship through rigged elections by the PNC. It culminated a long struggle waged by Guyanese here and abroad, in which the international community was lobbied to help Guyanese to have their fundamental right to choose their Government returned. The PNC fought these efforts tooth and nail, often through brutal means that included murder and assassination. While the world is aware about Dr. Walter Rodney’s assassination because of his fame as a historian and his activism, he was only one of several killed among hundreds imprisoned and tortured.
But, 29 years later, we are once again in the throes of fighting for democracy’s survival in our land, as the PNC remains hell-bent on refusing to accept the fundamental rule of democracy. To wit, that each vote should count, and that an agglomeration of the majority of votes of the populace confers the legitimacy for the winning party to govern on behalf of all the people. They blatantly attempted to rig the March 2 elections in front of literally the world – not via news reports, but directly by the representatives/observers of Caricom, the Commonwealth, the OAS, EU, US and other embassies like India. They scrutinised both the count and recount that went to the Caribbean Court of Justice, but the PNC still insisted they won and the PPP was “illegally installed”.
This year, Oct 5th also launches “Breast Cancer Awareness Week”, and reminds us that the PNC’s predilection for rigging elections is like a cancer that eats away at the innards of our democratic motherland. This cancer must be eliminated before it destroys our country, as it almost did by 1992, when we were made into a Highly Indebted Poor Country, perched precariously above Haiti at the bottom of the world’s indexes of development. Illegal Governments inevitably act in oppressive ways, as they institute draconian measures to hold on to power. But these provoke reactions in the populace that undermine institutions other than just the political. In our case, our economy imploded after the PNC nationalised 80% of its “commanding heights”, and we are still recovering from that disaster. Half of the country fled to whichever country they could enter, legally or illegally.
Last week, former Prime Minister Sam Hinds, who served from 1992 to 2015 as a member of the Civic addition intended to add ethnic balance to the PPP administration, made the suggestion that the PNC should vow to end its rigging culture. He made a suggestion to the new PNC/R Executive that is supposed to be elected by the end of Nov-early December: ‘A “Proclamation to End Rigging” would open many wonderful doors for all our people, our country, and most of all those who, for understandably good reasons, support the PNC/R/APNU.’ Maybe so, but it will never happen.
And Mr Hinds put his finger on the reason when he noted that former PNC Executive Raphael Trotman was ignominiously rejected when he suggested that the PNC should apologise for its post-1964 serial elections’ rigging. None of the present crop of PNC leaders – the incumbent and the challengers – has ever conceded that the PNC rigged elections, and their new tack is to insist that the PPP rigged the last elections. The latter did not do so when in office, and were checkmated in 2011 and defeated in 2015, but pulled it off when the PNC was in charge of the electoral machinery through its proxies, who are now before the courts for fiddling with the SOPs.
The great Indian political and social philosopher Chanakya once pointed out: “If the right task is not accomplished at the right time, then time itself wrecks the chances of success.” The “right task” for Guyana right now is to extirpate the PNC’s rigging culture. The PPP has the mandate to even alter the constitution and its enabling laws to accomplish this task. Just do it.
