OUR FINEST HOUR

Oct 05, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

 

 

October 5, 1992 was Guyana’s finest hour. It returned the indomitable PPP to power, this time with a civic appendage.
The holding of internationally certified free and fair elections in 1992, even amidst attempts from a faction within the PNC to postpone the day of reckoning, gave Guyana a chance to breathe again and the opportunity for a more “wholesome” existence. The PPP gave Guyana a respite from Hell on Earth because that is what PNC rule had become for most – not some but most – Guyanese.
Despite the suffering which its governance had inflicted on the Guyanese people, the PNC still managed to secure 44% of the total votes cast in the 1992 elections. This shocked many in the opposition who were expecting that the PNC would have been reduced to political insignificance.
So terrible was their rule that by 1987, it had become clear that the PNC did not have the answers to the problems of Guyana. Managing the affairs of Guyana was too big a task for the PNC and this was never clearer than in 1987 when the country virtually came to a standstill.
1987 was the year that broke the camel’s back and which convinced the majority of Guyanese that if Guyana was to have a future, the PNC had to go. Five years later, that happened but 1987 would always be remembered as a year when  extreme suffering was heaped on the Guyanese people and when the repressive acts of the State extended to even breaking up the end of a ten-day fast by Eusi Kwayana.
Today, the PPP will rightly bask in the achievements of the past twenty years. And there is no doubt that Guyana is now enjoying its finest hour economically. There has been without doubt unquestionable development. Only the blind will not concede that there has been significant material progress in the country. And because of the progress, other grounds have to be found on which to criticize the government. This is why there is such a hue and cry about high levels of corruption and insecurity cased by crime. There has to be. These are serious problems; but also they are the only issues that the opposition can criticize the government about because the record of economic achievements under the PPP cannot be denied.
Corruption and insecurity were also rampant during the epic rule of the PNC. So bad was corruption in those days that one businessman left Guyana in frustration at the many demands that were made of him at various layers of the bureaucracy. Things were so rotten that the businessman told the media that he was even asked to donate three typewriters to a government office. He also complained that he was questioned about his resident status after he sought a licence to conduct some business, even though there was not any nationality criterion for him to have such a licence.
This was in 1987, a year when import quotas for petrol were reduced because there was no money to pay for adequate supplies. The punishment of 1987 was at times unbearable with motorists having to line up for days just for a tank of gas and children having to skip school just to hold a space in the line for kerosene. The fuel companies of those days have never been honored for the gesture they took to share supplies amongst themselves thereby helping to make the best of a terrible situation.
The punishment of the fuel crisis of 1987 forced Eusi Kwayana to go on his ten-day fast. And when the fast was finished, the police used high handed tactics, going so far as to even arrest noted  Barbadian and Caribbean literary figure, George Lamming, who had come to visit and support Kwayana in his fast.
It was also in 1987 that the struggle for free and fair elections reached new heights. 1987 was therefore a turning point in Guyana’s history and therefore in as much as the PPP will today commemorate the 20th anniversary of its return to power, it should not forget the25th anniversary of the turning point in the struggle for democratic restoration.
In twenty years, the PPP has sidelined all those who were part of that heroic process that culminated in the win for the opposition in 1992. But it should on this special anniversary not forget the contributions from persons and parties outside of the PPP for without those contributions, free and fair elections would not have been achieved.
The PPP should also not become complacent because the PNC is waiting to take back the reins of government. The PNC has seen all its destruction reversed; the economy is now booming despite problem in the world economy. Things are better and therefore the PNC wants to return to political office.
If that ever happens, the PPP will only have themselves to blame for their many mistakes. The PPP should use this, their 20th anniversary of their return to power, to reflect on those mistakes and to correct them by utilizing some of the very proposals which they had called for in 1987.
It would be a shame if the PPP because of intransigence of its leadership hands this country back to the PNC.

---

---