Elect representatives who will solve your community problems

Nov 11, 2018 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

---

In the last few days, a few politicos and social commentators have suggested that the low voter turnout by the disciplined forces last week when they had the chance to cast their votes early, was purely because of disenchantment with the governing Coalition.
Similar opinions were expressed by former ministers of the former PPP government, by veteran trade unionists and newspaper columnists, among others. They seem to have placed the ‘blame’ for the voter apathy by the disciplined forces on what they suggest is unsatisfactory performance and output of the sitting Administration.
From our perspective, the history of voter turnout to local government elections in Guyana has many more factors to analyse. Even the LGE’s in 2016 were not different, despite the prevailing atmosphere of euphoria among much of the population because of the recent change to the smothering status quo brought about by the 2015 national elections. So in 2016, the level of participation by eligible electors was less than 50 percent which was hardly different from what obtained in the past.
This is not a Guyanese phenomenon. Voter apathy has been a recurring theme in local government elections, across the Caribbean at least. This year in the United States, however, their midterm elections for seats in the Senate, House of Representatives and for state Governors, on November 6, created an astonishing precedent that is headed for the history books. Voter turnout was exceptionally high in that starkly, racially divided population. There was a lot at stake.
In Guyana, as in the rest of the Caribbean, our citizenry is still not sufficiently responsive to the fact that it is their right and responsibility to elect the right people from their communities to look after their interests, such as ensuring their rice fields get access to water for irrigation at the right time; or keep their environments clean and hazard-free by clearing household garbage; or electing people who would not commandeer the Neighbourhood Council’s tractors and excavators for their own use.
In the city, voters must elect Councillors who show determination to demand that the city’s income is spent on preventing it from becoming the Garbage city that it was in the hands of the PPP.
It is unfortunate that our political and social cultures suffered so much damage via the former government’s stranglehold on the citizens’ right to think for themselves, choose for themselves, and demand what they want. Since 1992 when the PPP acceded to ‘power’, there was one single LGE, i.e. in 1994. Since then, Zip! The PPP Government made good use of what they took to be their right to give people what they wanted them to have, such as rivers and fish life dying from heavy silt and chemical pollution in the unprotected interior regions; and garbage piled so high in the city that a serious health crisis was just hovering there, waiting to move in on Georgetown’s citizens.
We have lived with poor service from city, town and neighbourhood councils for nearly a quarter century, but we do not have to! The ability to make the Change was put into our hands in 2015, so it is the citizen who now drives the vehicle for betterment.
Do you realize that our last three generations have grown up knowing precious little about how they can control their lives, livelihoods and their environments? Voter education by GECOM is one way to bring them information. The other most important means is the examples they are shown by their elders at home and in neighbourhoods.
One key block to the information reaching people is the noisy political rhetoric, the distortion of facts and blatant lies from the Opposition that prevent vital information from reaching the people. Many end up not knowing who their community candidates are because of them being bombarded by politics.
Political speeches have precious little to do with farmers on the Corentyne whose pigs, cows and chickens die in floods because water could not be pumped from the land, since the responsible Neighbourhood and Regional Councils did not ensure that the pumps were working. Instead, the residents have been taught to wait for the Ministers of Government to visit the disasters in order to voice their complaints, and to get help from Georgetown.
Mr. Arjoon would not have lost any chickens from his poultry farm because flood water stayed on the land for so many days, and the hard working cash crop farmer at Mahaicony would not have lost all of her bora and boulanger plants, if their respective local government councils were representing them adequately.
This is what local government elections are all about. This is why you select the people who you know will use their voices to ensure that your issues such as the potholed roads in your village receive a hearing at Council meetings.
The person who will take your message to the City Council or the Regional Council is your Candidate. If you do not know who he or she is, please find out TODAY, so that tomorrow you are able to put your mark next to the right name.
In truth, politics has no place at community level, not if you keep it out. LGE is all about your well being and your children’s health, and the fact that ordinary folks are quite capable of running their own district affairs.
And, the members of the Disciplined Services who missed out on the opportunity to vote early will be still able to do so tomorrow in their residential neighourhoods.
Salutations are in order for the many candidates who have offered their services to their communities. Many of them are not linked to any political party, and many are young people who are participating in elections for the first time. Like nothing else, this fact legitimizes Guyana’s democracy.

---

---