Your Eyewitness isn’t amused by the games the Opposition camp – and even some putatively impartial commentators – are playing on the Government’s proposals on closing the elections’ stable doors after the blatant rigging attempt by the PNC between March and Aug 2020. Now, just how many times we gotta say this? If your cow has brittle bones syndrome (BBS) but her leg is broken right now…do you wait until you have a cure for bovine BBS before fixing the broken leg?? If you say “yes”, you know you’re talking bovine excrement!!
There isn’t a Guyanese who’d say with a straight face – unless they’re suffering from lockjaw! – that our entire electoral system doesn’t need attention. That’s a given; and not just the electoral system, but almost every institution that implements the principles of our Constitution for changing concrete circumstances. And it’s for this reason that ALL constitutions have amendment procedures to deal with the contingency of serious societal disorders akin to “bovine BBS”.
For instance, your Eyewitness knows that if we want to push the value of REAL constituency representation, we gotta get demarcated constituencies. Then have folks competing to represent those constituencies in a First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) electoral system. The “hybrid” system we have now – as suggested by the name – is neither fish nor fowl!! It was just an expedient arrangement pushed by the PNC back in 1999! Quick now…can you name the MPs representing your Region? Thought so!!
And so, for instance, we can also argue whether the President ought to be elected directly by the people, or whether we should have a second house etc etc. The list of reforms would be as diverse as our population. And it’s for this that reason we can’t afford to rush into changes that affect the Constitution. This isn’t a document that must be brought down to the level of a recipe book, that we can adjust the ingredients to suit every individual’s taste. Haven’t we learnt from the massive changes made in 2000?? Did they stave off conflict??
Since such changes concern every citizen, the Government’s saying that we have to have the widest possible consultations with the people, and start from the very beginning. Do we really want to live together?? And if the answer is “yes”, then we can’t only consider what it is that “WE” personally want, but what WE COLLECTIVELY want!! And that’ll take time.
In the meantime, the Government have a country to run -including LGEs. They’ve already said that once we have a GECOM Secretariat professionally staffed, they’ll look at the Voters’ List. And we know that involves whether we want to disenfranchise our voluble non-resident citizens!!
So, let’s stop playing the fool!!
…on Mining
You, dear readers, would know that your Eyewitness is as staunch a defender of our Indigenous Peoples’ rights as anyone out there. And it’s not just because he enjoys that paiwari to distraction – even though it DOES get you distracted!! He just believes that this land was their land, and we must insist they get their full rights. Now, the question of land rights has come up once again, with the GGMC giving out mining prospecting licences on Marudi Mountain.
What your Eyewitness does know is that the Indigenous Peoples were granted – as part of our Articles for Independence from Britain – the rights to lands they “occupied from time immemorial”. Which just means where they’d been living within memory. And that the PPP started this process of giving them titles to such land after the PNC merely gave lip service during their 28 years.
But your Eyewitness understands Marudi Mountain isn’t part of the land they can claim through prior occupation.
So why the brouhaha??
…on Burnham
Imagine some defend Burnham as a “hero”. But then, didn’t Rodney say, “Guyana has produced a discouragingly large number of lackeys and stooges who hide in the shadow of the “Comrade Leader”?
Unfortunately, as Rodney pointed out, “everything he touched turned to sh*t”!!
