Matters are still murky about whether the Opposition’s gonna contest the upcoming elections singly or in a coalition. Your Eyewitness knows THEY know it’s a case of hanging together, or for sure they’ll hang separately! But unfortunately, when everyone wants to be the leader, good sense gets thrown out of the window!!
While, theoretically, they have a chance of defeating the PPP – since all that separated them at the last (2020) elections were about 10,000 votes – running separately would certainly “split the vote”, and they’ll lose “corn and husk”!! But, in reality, the PPP have been so focused on returning to government that they’ve made tremendous inroads into the traditional Opposition base – and it’s very improbable that they’ll even repeat their 2020 performance!!
So, what’re the Opposition to do, and not just throw in the towel?? Well, they’re quite united in demanding biometrics as a precondition for participating in the said elections!! What’s going on?? They just wanna remove pressure from themselves when they go their way separately and lose? Nah…it’s a bit more devious than that. They want a plausible excuse to PROTEST the PPP’s victory, by insisting that without biometrics the PPP’re gonna rig the elections by making dead people and overseas Guyanese vote for them!! Fact of the matter is that using the same system that’s gonna be in place, the PPP lost the 2015 elections, while they were in government!! If the system allowed rigging, why didn’t they do the dirty then??
But let’s take their argument for biometrics. Will this really prevent any possibility of electoral rigging, or remove any chance for the Opposition to complain about hanky-panky and engage in street protests and violence? Well, let’s look at the experience of Kenya, an ethnically-divided country that was wracked by disputed elections and violence after its independence in the 1960s – like us. They introduced biometrics in 2013 to prevent disputes, but there were so many glitches – such as replicating rejected votes eight times – that after the results were declared, Opposition Leader Odinga contested Kenyatta’s victory judicially!! All the equipment were jettisoned and replaced for the 2017 elections, but ended with Odinga again going to the Courts – this time claiming the servers were hacked. The Courts annulled the elections, and new elections were held – which Odinga boycotted because his demands for changes in the voting system weren’t met.
For their 2022 elections, one third of the equipment had to be replaced – yet they had to fall back on a MANUAL register when the biometric system failed in several polling stations!! Odinga, however, challenged winner William Ruto in the courts, but this was dismissed.
If people want to dispute elections, they’ll always find an excuse!!
…American retreat?
It has just been announced that as part of Trump’s wide range of actions in presumably putting America first and “Making America Great Again” (MAGA) – the USAID program suffered cutbacks across the world. What’s going on?? Since the 1960s, USAID had gradually replaced the CIA to influence regime changes where the US didn’t view govts as kosher enough. No more of the CIA fostering overthrows, like with Jagan here in 1964 and Chile’s Allende in 1972.
Check out all the “colour” revolutions in Eastern Europe and note the correlation with USAID’s activities!! Ain’t no coincidence there, baby!!
So, here in Mudland, with USAID programs placed on “hold”, those “civil society” groups getting funding for training on democratic governance and such like must be 5hitting bricks!! But not to worry…there’re lots of ways to skin a cat – or get govts to do your bidding!! With the new dispensation seeing money flowing in faster than the oil flowing out, it’s just a matter of controlling the spigot!!
…Colombia’s Petro??
Maduro’s been cussing out Colombia’s erstwhile leftist President Petro something fierce for not recognizing his rigged elections. Now he’s in Trump’s sight for protesting the manner in which deportees were treated.
Poor fella just can’t win, can he??
