Exactly 50 years ago, the government was illegal; it is now.

Jan 05, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

In 1968, Guyana witnessed the rigging of the first general election after Independence. This is an event widely documented. This is an event for which historical evidence is abundant. This is an event of which no credible academic would damage his/her scholarship to deny.
Racially shaped persons, party partisans, and beneficiaries of the government since 1968 will deny that 1968 drama and subsequent rigged elections. For example, a well-known Africanist in Guyana in reply to my politics and that of David Hinds, traced the evolution of rigged elections by the PPP and when he reached to the PNC used the words, “stock propaganda” to the descriptions of rigged elections under the PNC government since 1968. Should the analyst really bother with such nonsense?
Exactly fifty years ago in 1968 the government was illegal. It was not lawfully elected. Fast forward the tape to 2018 and we have a government that according to law and the constitution should be merely a caretaker government but has refused to accept that. The Speaker has ruled that the no confidence motion was passed effectively and properly. He had disallowed the alternative submissions of the ruling APNU+AFC leadership.
Who is the Speaker? First, he is a scholar. Secondly, there is no political baggage that one can find to accuse him of having a dubious political past. Thirdly, he was the selectee of the APNU+AFC after the 2015 election. Fourthly, he has no record of favouring the PPP side in the House. Fifthly, the PPP has said the most unflattering things about him that has no parallel in Guyana’s parliamentary history.
Cheddi Jagan as Opposition Leader had volcanic exchanges with Speaker Sase Narine but the present crop of MPs from the PPP has virtually insulted the Speaker time after time. The lowest level of philistinism in the history of the House occurred when the Speaker asked Juan Edghill to leave the chambers.
He refused and when security was called in, PPP philistines assaulted security personnel and keep shouting; “rape, rape, rape!” This was the treatment Dr. Scotland received from the opposition side of the Assembly. Fifthly, so terrible was the abuse that the Speaker made a dubious ruling that MPs cannot criticize the Speaker in letters to the newspapers.
Dr. Scotland had no reason pragmatically to rule in favour of the Opposition last Thursday. Morally and legally he had an obligation to his country. He carried it out in a manner that puts him in the history books. We keep talking about the bravery of Charrandass (let me say here unambiguously; I support the yes vote of Charrandass and I think he was courageous) but we keep forgetting the phenomenal display of principles by Dr. Scotland.
He rejected the improper and obnoxious request, advised by Raphael Trotman which was put by Volda Lawrence that the no-confidence motion be intercepted by a time out process. Had he granted that, then Charrandass may have been threatened viciously.
So here we are fifty years after the first illegal government in 1968 with the same reality. The Speaker has ruled. The APNU+AFC government needs to scale down and accept that a no confidence motion has been passed. The constitution is the most priceless document in any county. To have a government disregard it is to put the gear in semi-fascist overdrive. We cannot shape fate after fate has spoken.
We cannot bring back the dead. We cannot bring back Desmond Hoyte. We cannot bring back Walter Rodney. We cannot bring back Bookers Ltd. We cannot give back Donald Ramotar the year his presidency was cut short by. We cannot bring back the days of banned wheaten four. We cannot bring back the days when only men had the vote. We cannot bring back the days when the banks only had nice Portuguese female tellers. We cannot bring back the days of Metropole, Astor and Globe in Guyana. In exactly the same context we cannot bring back the APNU+AFC in government.
It fell to a no-confidence vote. Fate has spoken. The country must move on. Who says the PNC (I don’t mean APNU+AFC but the PNC) will not win the presidency in 2019? My take is that either the PPP or PNC will win the plurality and will need parliamentary exigency from smaller parties in parliament. But from what I have heard from diplomatic circles, a situation exists where after the 2019 poll, the likely results will force the PPP and PNC to work together.
Stop cussing down Charrandass. He may have set into motion the dialectics for final racial and political accommodation between the great yet infamous PPP and PNC.

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Exactly 50 years ago, the government was illegal; it is now.

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