Has countdown time begun?

Aug 04, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

We are in the month of August. It makes it a year to go before we enter the most historic election ever to be held in this country. We thought it would have been 1992. But what emerged was an unimaginable nightmare. No objective, independent commentator would ever put any meaning whatsoever on the symbolism of 1992. It was supposed to mark the reemergence of Guyana as a prestigious, respected country in the Caribbean region. It was to be the beginning of a new political culture, and changed institutions. The joy that 1992 brought was lugubriously fleeting.
In 1992, the PPP won a free election, the first one held since 1964. In those 18 years, a large group of Guyanese would argue that period’s elections are a farce in Guyana and others would put it in more cynical terms, like Tom Dalgetty did, that given the level of degenerate politics we have today inside the corridors what was the fuss about rigged elections in the past. I was on the same panel with him at a conference two years ago and he criticized me and the rest of Guyana for carping about rigged elections under Burnham. One has to understand the psychological underpinnings of that emotion by Dalgetty.
President Burnham’s reaction to accusations against rigged elections was that free polls would not bring democracy to Guyana because one half of Guyana would suffer while another half would dominate. His cynical but realistic attitude was since we, one of the other half, have the power why call free elections and commit political suicide.
Before we go on, it is appropriate to cite from a published conversation between Dr. David Hinds and the late Clarence Ellis. They were opposed to each other while in Guyana and became friends. David wrote that during a debate with Ellis, he asked him how he could have sided with Burnham. Ellis told him that people like Burnham knew the evil side of the PPP.
I have heard countless persons make that assessment to me. I had a chat with Martin Carter as to why he joined Burnham. I spoke to several other high-ranking stalwarts from the anti-colonial days and even later, and the consensus was Burnham didn’t have an elevated opinion of the PPP leadership because they were no superior moral force.
By the time Jimmy Carter arrived to broker a covenant between President Hoyte and the opposition, there were thunderstorms that flooded the war room at Congress Place. Hoyte was confronted with the Burnham framework which he, Hoyte refused to acknowledge, that if free elections were held, the PPP would perpetuate Indian hegemony and the gains of Africans would be washed away.
Tony Vieira, former television owner went public during a media interview to comment on the sudden death of Mr. Hoyte and told the nation that the advocates of Burnham’s political sociology of Guyana had been planning to remove the Hoyte presidency.
Today, many persons who see the past 18 years as pure political insanity still offer you their cynical, thoughtful reflection – Burnham was right, rigged elections spelt disaster for Guyana.
So we have less than a year before the next general election. What happens after? If the PPP wins again, it would be one of history’s most unfortunate moments ever. Even the most ardent supporter of the PPP tells you he/she is not in agreement with the monstrous policies that are presently foisted upon the nation but they want the PPP to be in power. In other words, they recognize that there is a balance sheet that is disgraceful but when this kind of individual mentions a PPP victory you must read that to mean a preference for Indian government.
I say a most unfortunate moment in history, because no logical mind can go to that ballot station and cast a vote for a party with so much decay and moral turpitude on its record. Human beings do not vote for such destructive people. It is simply irrational and illogical for a sensible human being to cast a vote for a party that over 19 years (when the election comes around the PPP would be 19 years in office) has shown absolutely no redemption and has violated all, I repeat all the sacred values that comprise human decency.
The political pundits put it down to the racial instinct. But the human being puts the destructive instinct below their cultural choice? The countdown has begun. Guyanese must turn their back on evil. Mohandas Gandhi wrote that it is a sacred duty of the human being not to cooperate with evil.

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Has countdown time begun?

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