Given the credibility track record of OP we might as well all believe that we should listen to Martians

May 07, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Bharrat Jagdeo has been reminding Guyanese everywhere this year about the PNC’s past stuffing of ballot boxes to rig elections in their favour.
True, but who hasn’t already been told of that in the year 2011 by Jagdeo and company has probably been relocated somewhere on Mars and placed in some deep, dark, hole far underground where there are only dead Martians with teeny-tiny eye sockets to confer with.
Meanwhile, according to SN, “asked to respond to criticisms that Donald Ramotar’s appointment is an effort to veil his campaigning on state resources, Dr. Roger Luncheon responded that “whatever expenditure is incurred’ will be subject to scrutiny and made public knowledge.”
If we were all on Mars, and I swear to you, Mr. Editor, we are not, without a Freedom of Information Law in place, all Guyanese would be expressing confidence in the PPP Government’s commitment to transparency and accountability, and the PPP government would have already fully explained to the nation the source(s) of the funds the two Pradovilles were bought with and the source(s) of the funds the mansions there are being built with, or they would have already either confirmed or denied if the mansion now being built by Kwame Mc Koy is really worth $100,000,000 and they would have also explained, based on his income, where he got the money from to build.
And Luncheon would have already satisfactorily addressed Guyanese’ concerns that Ramotar is not allegedly running to fulfill his own presidential ambitions with hard-working Guyanese, taxpayers’ money while they struggle to survive with a 16% VAT draining their already stressed-out incomes.
Given the credibility track record of those who work at OP, we might as well all believe that we should listen to Martians instead whenever anyone of the OP crew, open their mouths to speak to us.
Now, given the lengthy letters and news stories that an already over stressed electorate has to endure in order to keep abreast with the issues as it seeks to cast informed ballots, hopefully based on issues and not race at the end of this process, I am going to spare them any further preamble, cut right through the noise and ask four questions, and if the answer is no to all of those question, then nation, we are looking at an election already rigged, but this time, in favour of the PPP in the year 2011!
1) Is this elections free and fair when the PPP holds the purse for GECOM and allegedly allocates the money only on what they see it fit to finance, and rarely, if at all, do they see it fit to fund GECOM to review various allegations of unfair inequalities made by the opposition parties of the PPP, and without any current and competent Freedom of Information law in place to guarantee free and fairness in accountability and transparency, the PPP remains the alleged super-advantaged, non-investigated, perpetrator-in-chief? No.
2) Is this elections free and fair when the PPP has provided no immediate verifiable record to counter allegations that they are using the vast state funds and powers of the state to fund and fuel Ramotar’s elections campaign while the other candidates have to struggle to raise their own funds through their own party, and while holding the purse strings, has the PPP government allocated any funds to GECOM to put a system in place to address these allegations recently made by the AFC in Parliament of the misuse of state funds for campaign financing by the PPP? No!
3) Is this elections free and fair when the PPP, while denying independent broadcasters radio and T.V licences to operate in a free and fair competitive media space, controls taxpayers’ funded, overweight state media to the point that it locks out the opposition parties’ points of view, early elections advertisement, even above the AFC’s objections while that party attempts simple efforts to serve non political community needs, all the while peddling its own twisted tales, innuendos, whoppers, double-whoppers and even its fatally flawed, triple-triple-triple-double whoppers? Most definitely, not!
4) Is this elections free and fair when the PPP still holds the purse strings to repeat their collaborative efforts with Corbin, as they did in 2006, to divide up scrutinizers’ money only between the PPP and the PNC and exclude the AFC by denying them funds to fulfill their role as scrutinizers as well, even ignoring a court order? No!
So now no, no more do the PPP and their supporters get to say free and fair elections in 2011, because unless GECOM or the OAS or some other international impartial body or all of them together, move in with independent funds to rectify all of the above with the swiftest of urgency as though they were rescuing Guyana from walking backwards to its own tragic history itself of past rigged elections, Nation, this present system that now governs elections 2011, is now rigged in favour of the PPP and no, they don’t have to use stuffed ballot boxes carted away under the cover of darkness as did the PNC back in the days when the dinosaurs walked the earth, the PPP is now doing it, and they are presumption enough to be doing it right before our very eyes!
Roxanne De Cruiz

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