It is now more than who the West wants to rule Guyana

Feb 27, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

If you haven’t read it, read Henry Jeffrey’s “Who does the West want to rule?” (Feb.12/20 in another newspaper) Read it several times. Then read it again. This is a powerful analysis with which I agree on many fronts. Jeffrey is right that the PPP and APNU have tainted the voting register to make it easier to rig an election. That destruction of our electoral system got far worse since the no-confidence vote. The recent GECOM moves are blatant. Shockingly, some of these authoritarian antics have occurred after ABC advisors with strong electoral backgrounds in democratic ABC elections were implanted in GECOM! And these moves have also been met by mostly silence from the West. The latest voter suppression tactic is to shrink and change the number of polling places with days to the election! Again, this is with Western advisors with potent democratic history embedded in GECOM and with another round of ABC silence! Thankfully, that was reversed.
This naturally brings us to Jeffrey’s point about foreign observer missions that cannot be trusted when their geopolitical and geostrategic interests are directly involved in the very election they’re observing. Oil comes first and democracy be damned. But here’s the bottomline, when the electoral machinery is not credible and the stage is set for consternation and conjecture around the election result, this is where these powers and missions want to be in order to play their geopolitical and geostrategic hand. How can you blame them? They are looking out for their people and their interests. They did not start the meddling with the electoral machinery to make it malleable to all manner of interference. Blame Jagdeo and Granger for that. Blame the PPP and APNU for that. They deliberately broke the electoral machinery and then refused to fix it knowing oil would render us into a geopolitical target. In doing so, the PPP and APNU handed the fate of this country over to foreigners.
Is there any hope in what is increasingly an election result that the West may have to call? Jeffrey points to the Kenya example as a buffer to this serious risk where Kenya’s highest court last year overturned the contentious election result even after foreign observer missions validated the election. The Kenya option is likely to be employed in Guyana and it is an excellent buffer. Then there is the reality that the West’s position can change depending on who holds power in America. A Democratic administration may view democracy and geostrategy differently. Even the unpredictable Trump may take a different position. The world is not as open to despotism as before. A massive Guyanese expat population in these ABC countries clamouring for democracy at home would not help. However, the most significant development will be the reaction of Russia and China. Jeffrey did not discuss this angle. Latin America is no longer America’s backyard. Russia and China have made that known with Venezuela. They are here and aren’t backing down. The West is deeply aware of Russia after Crimea, Europe, the Balkans, Iran and Syria in recent times. Electoral mayhem, real or contrived, is a serious problem in this landscape as it opens the door to the real possibility of superpower geopolitical meddling. Once that door is open, it cannot be closed.
Will democracy prevail or will geostrategic inclinations dominate? Right now, Shuman is the party spoiler and the West’s best bet to secure a stable democratic future that safeguards the West’s massive investment. Shuman will win a few seats unless cheated. This means a minority government again. It is easier to control a minority government than a majority one, legal or illegal. It is a safer bet to invest in democracy in Guyana’s current context and work with a kingmaker like Shuman to force constitutional reform that delivers a stronger democracy that in turn provides bulletproof investment protection than to risk it all on propping up a government with shaky democratic credentials. Particularly in a country where the consensus, despite the deep political divide, is that the oil deal with the West is an unfavourable one. Install any kind of puppet regime in that environment with a formidable opposition and with activist superpowers sitting next door itching for expansionism and we literally have a match thrown into a barrel of crude. Who does the West want to rule Guyana? Who does the courts? Who does the democratic international community? Who does Putin or Xi? Who does Guyanese?

Yours faithfully,
M. Maxwell

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