Dear Editor,
General and Regional Elections in Guyana is a mandatory issue; and nothing — I repeat, nothing — is going to stop us now. The shenanigans of the PNC and their cohorts at GECOM cannot stop that inevitability. It is a constitutional mandate that has to be upheld come what may. The Government and its unilateral appointee are afraid of this, and in that regard, they are in concert, trying their utmost to stymie this imminent event.
The Government is exploring every available option, such as appeals and other delaying tactics, which simply would not work because, at the end of the day, they must honour and respect the dictates of the Constitution, which explicitly states that upon the successful passage of a no-confidence motion, the President and Cabinet must resign and call fresh elections. Period! The Constitution on which all civilised societies is pivoted (Guyana being one such society) must reign supreme.
Trying to frustrate the people of this country on this fundamental right would only breed more harm for the Government. Again, I say: trying to prevent the people of Guyana from making that all-important decision as to who governs them would prove very detrimental to this present dictator, PNC. The more you delay, the more the numbers of those who are against you grow. Day by day, persons are crossing the floor, even those of your die-hard supporters are breaking ranks with The PNC.
And from those of us whose ears are to the ground, the number of those that are against you has swollen to a massive amount. I am calling on the PNC to do the decent thing; that is, call an election now and bow out with some dignity. Do not wait until the odds are against you.
What the PNC should be grateful about is that under the Proportional Representation (PR) process, they are assured seats in the next election. However, if elections were to have been held under a constituency system, their lot would certainly be that of Barbados, Grenada, and I think St Kitts, where the Opposition was wiped out of existence. Whenever a Government becomes obnoxious, the voters are very severe with those of their oppressors. So the PNC ought to be thankful for the system that we have.
Now, having said all of that, it behoves us to scrutinise the Guyana system a bit. When you look at Guyana, you get the horrifying picture of a party that has never, I repeat, has never won an election but has had the longest stay in power. How they did it is anybody’s guess, by a system of intimidation, fear and finally, by rigging. It is an appalling state of affairs that the party is unashamedly proud of.
Their strategy is notorious, with that Third World brutal backwardness unleashed here at every election here in Guyana. They are already on the warpath with the incarceration of Miss Jaferally, a PPP/C supporter with those trumped-up charges of her trying to blow up The University of Guyana and other educational institutions.
But this has backfired on them, persons are questioning that charge with all seriousness and telling them forthrightly that these charges are political in nature. So they are now trying the bribery trick on those who support them.
Now, it seems that they have gotten a little smarter this time around in that they are now going into their strongholds promising them land to build their dream houses. This new bribery campaign is targeting certain select depressed communities with the sole aim of getting recruits for their massive protest actions come election time. But that campaign strategy has hit a snag, as you listen to the comments of two such PNC supporters. Those supporters are saying “Deh come hot and sweaty with house lots … what they been doing all dis time?” Another retorted “we ain’t get wuk, we ain’t gat money, so how we guh buy land … PNC think we stupid nuh”.
These comments are symptomatic of countless others of its kind, and for which the PNC is aware of, hence their fear of calling an election. When your own are turning away from you and their attention is on the Opposition, you know full well what will be the result. I say call the elections now!
Respectfully,
Neil Adams
