To a hammer, everything it encounters is a nail; that’s what its “lived” experience of hitting everything in sight has taught it!! And to the PNC, every election is about rigging; that’s what its lived experience taught it over the 28 years it rigged its way into power!! So, who was surprised that in the very first election after Hoyte was forced to stand down in 1992 – following a call from the White House – he insisted the 1997 elections were rigged by the PPP!! It was evidently inconceivable to the PNC that elections could be decided solely by counting the votes!! Even after a “forensic audit” of the votes by the TT Jurist Cross had showed that the PPP had won fair and square, Hoyte called out his forces into the streets and forced the PPP to cut their term by two years!!
It’s becoming increasingly clear that this tactic of accusing the PPP of rigging elections is now part of the PNC’s Standard Operating Procedure for every election!! Even when the PPP LOST the 2015 elections – when they were in office and presumably in charge of the apparatus!! – they were accused of rigging!!
So, by now we should know the drill, after so many times going to the (rigging) well!! First will come the accusations that the GECOM Chair is PPP – never mind that, according to the rules, she was selected by the PNC!!
Then will come accusations that the GECOM Secretariat is filled with PPP loyalists…and that the list is “bloated”!!
The first accusation was never short of irony, since, from the inception, the hiring practices ensured that recruits came from the PNC base!! That the second was due primarily to the law stipulating that citizens who were on the voters’ list but had migrated couldn’t be stricken off didn’t matter. If they were serious, they could’ve passed the necessary legislation when in office between 2015 and 2020, but they never did. That would’ve removed one of their major mobilization planks for post-electoral rumbles!!
After the 2020 elections, they came up with some new ploys. They insisted the PPP had scads of persons, using the IDs of the “dead and migrated”, show up at polling stations and voting for the cup!! So, what about the PNC party agents sitting at every one of the said polling stations to prevent just such an eventuality?? The PPP either conducted mass hypnosis, for them to fall asleep when those dirty deeds were being committed, or all PPP (Indian) supporters looked alike, so ID cards were useless!!
So, now we have the new demand for “biometrics” – or else!! One thing we know for sure is that the Opposition’s laying the groundwork for claiming PPP-rigging – and causing trouble in the streets!!
…our divisions
In every society on planet Earth, there are divisions. Heck…in every FAMILY on planet Earth there are divisions!! And by now we know that, even though politics was invented to deal with those divisions – you think there ain’t politics in families?! – there are two approaches. There are “healers”, who try to bridge the divisions by looking out for everyone, and then there are the “dealers”, who work on widening the divide.
In Guyana, the PNC has traditionally followed the path of “dealers”, and every time it sees an opportunity, instead of shaping its own narrative to bring our people together, it copies what the British used to do — divide our people for the sake of politics and power. Take the PPP’s announced strategy of courting votes from the traditional PNC African-Guyanese base. Doesn’t this mean they’re decreasing the old divide?? Shouldn’t the PNC be doing the same??
Thank goodness the new AFC leader ain’t buying the PNC’s divisiveness; he’s campaigning for votes across the divides.
…for keeps
As your Eyewitness has been warning for years, Mad Maduro isn’t letting go of power. Like his predecessor and mentor, he’s only gonna let go when he croaks – or is removed. The Opposition’s doing its part through protests!!
