Home Letters The international community needs to act strongly to preserve democracy
Dear Editor,
Guyanese and the international community are very much worried about the brazen and unbridled threats to democracy that is permeating the land. Following the successful passing of the historical No-Confidence Motion on December 21, 2018, Guyana has gradually slipped into tyrannical rule as perpetrated by Granger and his racist PNC clan.
Those anxieties are very much justified because as I write, it is 154 days and counting since the March 2, 2020 elections were held and GECOM is yet to make the final declaration of a winner. Added to that, we have witnessed the decimation by the PNC, APNU/AFC of the supreme law of the land, the Guyana Constitution and the flagrant disregard for the court rulings. The Constitution clearly sets out the holding of elections in three months after the passing of a No-Confidence Motion against the Government. Well, the elections came thirteen months after and to date Granger and his clan still squats in Government.
The abuse of the Judiciary has been relentless. Most recently, the Guyana High Court, where the PNC activist Misenga Jones was seeking to block their accomplice, the GECOM CEO Mr Keith Lowenfield, from using the recount votes for the election’s declaration.
Madame Chief Justice Roxane George was decisive, the language was forthright, strong and unambiguous. The APNU/AFC challenger to the GECOM process was “whipped with many stripes”. All their declarations and orders sought were clinically demolished by the CJ. Using words like “hopelessly flawed” referring to Mr Basil Williams was more than embarrassing. Mr Keith Lowenfield was admonished in the sturdiest terms such as inferring that he cannot be a “lone ranger”. She was totally dismissive of Jones’ requests and very explicit in her rulings.
But alas, Mr Harmon, in what has become the standard operational procedure (SOP) of the PNC, wasted no time in spinning a web of deception and falsehoods, he revived his unsubstantiated claims of fraud that had been already addressed by the country’s apex court, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). The rulings are public knowledge. He said the High Court sidestepped the issue of fraudulent ballots in the tabulated votes at the recount and went on to threaten that the APNU/AFC will not allow a Government to come to power on fraudulent votes.
Mr Aubrey Norton said the rulings are more based on politics than law, already insinuating that the Chief Justice is meddling in politics. They have withheld their usual character assassination of the Chief Justice for she is a highly respected Guyanese Jurist. They are weighing the negatives that are likely to follow knowing that the CJ is of the same ethnic ilk of their main support base.
One has to understand that this entire scenario being repeated by the PNC, APNU/AFC about the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections and the National Recount has got nothing to do with votes and the allegations of fraud. The sad reality, the absolute truth is that it is about a few in the PNC promoting their dirty racist underpinnings. The PNC African political leadership beginning from Forbes Burnham, smart and cunning but an ingrained intellectual racist. Some in the diaspora are obsessed with Afrocentrism and “black power”. These self-styled intellectuals are all downright racists. The likes of David Hinds, Rickford Burke, Mark Benchop based in the USA, one would hope that that the US criminal investigative lens are focused on them, are bold and forefront on the subject. Those locally; Lincoln Lewis, Eric Phillips, Henry Jeffery, to name a few, are speaking the same language. They all promote their racist agenda with impunity which seems not to bother the ERC. The PNC is grounded in pathological racism and is of the unshakable and fanatical mindset that Guyana was willed to them by the departure of the colonial powers and that they have the absolute right to govern. Guyana is their prized inheritance.
That bunch of parasitical racists’ objectives were always set in motion and very evident. Their resort to the abuse of the Judiciary was to allow for the extension of their illegal occupation of Government and prolong their carnage and pilfering of the national treasury. Mr Harmon said the CCJ got it all wrong, they refused to implicate the PPP in the fraud committed. Granger and his clan have finally stepped out of their disguised game box and have made their intents pellucid. Mr Harmon said, “we will not bend”. They prefer visa restrictions and sanctions than to allow the elected PPP/C Government to take office. The international community needs to act strongly to preserve democracy
The regurgitating of their mantra that thousands of blacks were killed during Jagdeo’s rule is inciting. One PNC disingenuous leader said over five hundred thousand black youths were killed. The APNU TV live daily shows belching the twisted narratives each day are the positions taken by the PNC leadership and are tailor-made to suit the charge that black lives are at risk once the PPP goes back to office. With Granger’s refusal to concede and their support base so incensed, the worst is possible.
Respectfully,
Parasram Persaud