The people of Guyana have to decide right this minute

Oct 07, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

At the vigil outside Channel 6 on Robb Street on Tuesday evening, there was a heated discussion among some important names in the anti-dictatorship movement about the possibility of boycotting the election over the closure of Channel 6. No Guyanese can be so barefacedly indecent to deny the connection between the edict against CN Sharma’s station and the election.
In May, the station ran into trouble. In October, just weeks before the national poll, the entity was taken off the air and would remain so for a period that takes it past the election campaign.
It is a nasty assault on democracy that should not go unprotested. This brings into focus the election. The call for the opposition to eschew participation in national elections goes back directly to ACDA. It is that organization that has unambiguously called for a decision by all stakeholders to agree on a national government before contesting the polls. The political parties did not agree. My understanding is that ACDA has made that a policy of its existence and adheres to that position.
It is not a framework that can easily be washed away or can be summarily dismissed. ACDA is not the only entity in Guyana that sees a perpetual tragedy once we go the route of elections with its Westminster weaknesses. It has brought disaster after disaster. It has led to post-PNC dictatorship that this writer believes has transformed itself into fascism. This is the stage we are at.
But things have gone beyond ACDA’s rationalization. We are returning to the atmosphere of unfair elections. Against this background, there is a crescendo of feelings against participating in the elections next month.
The use of state resources has become nasty and overbearing. At Albion, GuySuCo trucks were openly transporting thousands of people to the PPP rally. The Chronicle has virtually become a PPP newspaper. It is not that the Chronicle features the Ministers and the President in their capacity as governmental functionaries. The paper focuses on exclusive stories on the PPP’s campaign. Last Sunday, the lead feature was on the PPP’s Albion rally with large photographs of PPP leaders. NCN’s nightly newscasts are about the PPP’s campaign.
Now we have the railroading of Channel 6. The episode is not about the man, Sharma. It is about a media house that the opposition needs to use for election campaigns. The PPP has NCN and channels 28, 65 and 69. It is a horrible rape of democratic rights. It is a horrific curtailment of opposition energies right in the middle of an election campaign. It should not be accepted.
What is the alternative? Here are the scenarios. The opposition APNU has suggested a march from Stabroek Market Square to State House.
What happens if at that march and others, there is planned violence by agent provocateurs and death results that the PPP can make use of in the election campaign? This means that the opposition has played into the hands of the PPP. Against that background it is foolish to go ahead with the election race.
AFC people have told me that the PPP isn’t getting numbers at all. I see that for myself. In Kingston, Wednesday night, there was a non-existent attendance. At Vreed-en-Hoop, the pattern continued. The PPP put on a show of dancers in Albouystown, but the crowds were sparse.
If the opposition feels that the PPP can lose the elections then they are caught in a bind if they protest the action against Channel 6 and state agents make a disaster out of it. What do they do then?
How can they go to the polls after that when the PPP would have driven fear into their supporters that they must come out and vote against violence? Secondly, if the marches are infiltrated and the infiltration is used as a pretext to postpone the elections because of a state of emergency, what will be the strategy of the AFC and PNC and civil society organizations?
Finally, if there is an election boycott because of the unfairness that is enveloping the 2011 poll, what shape will the extra-parliamentary route take? Will the Guyanese people perform an Arab Spring? These are troubling times and the combined opposition has its work cut out.
One thing for sure; whatever happens from hereon, there must be a united front among opposition parties. Right at this moment, they have to start a dialogue with the ABC embassies, the Caricom Secretariat, the business community, churches and other major stakeholders. Fascism has finally caught up with Guyana in 2011.

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The people of Guyana have to decide right this minute

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