Vote wisely on March 2

Feb 19, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

National and Regional Elections will be held on March 2, just over a week after the country would have observed its 50th anniversary as a Republic. On February 23rd 1970, the country attained Republican status after some 150 years of British Colonial rule.
Guyana has also joined the ranks of other oil producing nations as a petroleum state, one consequence of which is that the country is now catapulted to the status as a key and strategic player on the international stage.
As a country, we have had a chequered political past. Our post-independence history has been interspersed with consecutive periods of undemocratic and democratic rule, the latter of which encompassed some twenty-eight years, almost the same as that of the pre-1992 period of PNC authoritarian rule.
One important lesson from these two contrasting periods is that there is a positive correlation between democratic rule and economic growth and development. Guyana was ranked in the 1980’s as the poorest country in the western hemisphere and was declared “untrustworthy” by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The status of the country changed incrementally since the restoration of democratic rule in 1992, thanks in no small measure to the pivotal role played by the Carter Centre and other western nations. We are no longer seen as a poor, highly indebted nation by the international community but as an emerging economic giant thanks to us becoming an oil producing State.
The best gift to this nation on this our 50th anniversary as a Republic is to ensure that the results of the coming national and regional elections accurately reflect the will of the Guyanese electorate.
This is not only a duty but a national imperative. It involves not only the Guyana Elections Commission but all those who value and cherish the ideals of a free and democratic society. In this regard, the presence of local and international observers is most welcome and reassuring. The Head of the European Union Observer Mission to Guyana could not have put it better when he said that his Mission is not interested in which party wins but how it wins.
I encourage all eligible Guyanese not only to vote but vote wisely on March 2. The world is watching.

Hydar Ally

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