…and hitching up
Early on, at the beginning of the millennium, Desmond Hoyte suddenly purported to reverse his adamant stance on “shared governance” – after his resort to violent protests after losing the 1997 elections resulted in another ignominious loss at the polls in 2001. In 1985, he’d inherited the presidency rather unexpectedly when Burnham suddenly passed away. He’d also inherited the ongoing talks between the PNC and the PPP on the same said “power-sharing”, but tossed it overboard and proceeded to rig the 1985 elections more massively than Burnham had ever done!!
Following up on his strident and hysterical moves between 1992 and 1997 to tag the PPP as “racial”, he upped the ante post-2001 and segued into his “slow fyaah; mo fyaah strategy” that brought unprecedented violence into Guyanese politics. Imagine him going into Buxton after the prison escapees had set up their criminal killing base there and announcing that the PPP was maligning Buxton by claiming there were criminals there!!
And it was against this background that the PPP responded to his floating of “shared governance” by insisting that there must be trust among the parties that would “share government”. Otherwise, one would simply be changing the locus of the political skirmishes. The PPP had engaged the PNC since 1958 when the party was founded. They knew, through bitter experience, that the PNC hones to the philosophy of Machiavelli when it comes to politics. Politics to them is simply war by other means!!
Now if anyone wanted any proof that the PPP had nailed the nature of the beast they were dealing with, all they have to do is reflect on how the PNC – under Granger’s leadership – has treated the AFC: which they courted into a coalition so they could boast they were practising “shared governance”! Let’s skip over the fact that they have the gall to insist that the four one-man-parties hitched to their coattails have transmuted them into something new – APNU!
The conniving and treacherous nature of the PNC was revealed most dramatically in the surreal set of circumstances unfolded earlier this week in the PNC camp. First, Harmon confessed they won’t release ALL the details of the new Accord with the AFC.
Then, there was Granger saying he hasn’t chosen a PM candidate and won’t be naming one till AFTER the elections! The AFC then indignantly screamed that the President wasn’t fair! Followed by Harmon insisting that Ramjattan would be PM and Granger finally mumbling at a Hopetown Rally that Ramjattan would be his “running mate”!
We all know Guyana doesn’t have “running mates”, so Granger still hasn’t confirmed his coalition ally as PM.
And some want the PPP to trust the PNC?? Yeah, right!!
…and the voters’ list
Frankly, Dear Reader, your Eyewitness doesn’t know how much more he can take with this confounded voters’ list. And all of the continuing confusion contumelies come from the decision made by the Chair – to not scrap the incomplete, unverified (by the PPP) and inconsistent H2H registration. Even her CEO, Lowenfield, had insisted a Claims and Objections on the list used for the 2015 elections would’ve been as credible as any other list used previously used!!
But no!! To show that she was being “fair” to the PNC, she bent over backwards to such an extent she became supine – which isn’t an appropriate position for someone in her position! She had GECOM spend $3 billion on the H2H, tens of millions to have it “matched” to the OLE. Finally, she’s now decided to have all the unmatched names inserted into the NRR and extracted into the RLE.
Followed all of that? Don’t worry, it’s “confounded” because it’s “confounding”!!
…in bridges
In the US, a rejoinder to a gullible answer is “Sure! And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you”. David Patterson seems determined to test our gullibility. In 2016, he promised a new DHB in two years.
In 2019, he again promises one in “two years”!!
