Put the interest of the country ahead of partisan interest

Apr 20, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

The PNC, now subsumed under the APNU-AFC umbrella would be making a monumental mistake if it feels it could get away with a rigged election as it did in the past.
For one thing, the global political-ideological environment is not quite the same. The Cold War, for all practical purposes, is now over. The East-West divide has given way to a new era of global relationships in which economic diplomacy takes precedence over ideological considerations. There is no longer a World Socialist System headed by the USSR and a World Capitalist System led by the United States of America. The United States and the former USSR no longer compete with each other for ‘spheres of influence’ as during the Cold War period. The PNC is today not seen by the West as ‘the lesser of the two evils’.
It is in the above context that any attempt by the APNU-AFC to play off one ‘superpower’ with another which Forbes Burnham successfully did in the 1970’s and the early 1980’s is disingenious and will not succeed in today’s new and changing global dispensation. The foreign policy of the United States and other western powers are dictated more by economic diplomacy and democratic norms rather than by any perceived ‘ideological’ allegiance.
This explains why the United States and other western nations are taking a strong and uncompromising position on the issue of democratic elections in Guyana. There is a discernible shift in US foreign policy to one of open support for free, fair and transparent elections. As the US Ambassador Sarah Lynch correctly pointed out, the United States does not have a preference for any political party forming the next government provided that the new government is sworn in on the basis of free, fair, credible and transparent elections.
Any attempt to hold on to power by undemocratic means as the APNU-AFC is attempting to do is fraught with dangerous consequences including sanctions both at an individual level and at the level of the country as a whole. Desmond Hoyte, to his credit, understood the dire consequences of rigged elections in October 1992 and conceded defeat. That remains a legacy for which he will be credited down the corridors of time. He realised that his Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) which he embarked upon in the late 1980’s stood little chance of suceeding if he were to hang on to power by undemocratic means.
President David Granger can do likewise in the face of incontrovertible evidence that his Coalition has lost the March 2 elections. He, like Desmond Hoyte, could go down as a political leader and Statesman who is prepared to put the interest of the country ahead of partisan interest.
As the Organization of American States (OAS) observed, the situation is salvageable. The recounting process, if done in a fair and transparent manner, could change the political narrative and image of Guyana in positive ways. Moreover, it could make way for a new governance dispensation in which the fears and insecurities inherent in our diversity could be addressed by way of constitutional reforms and shared governance. It is an acknowledged fact that the APNU+AFC alliance has the support of a large political and ethnic constituency. As such, it simply cannot be pushed into the political backwater and should be given an integral role in the governance processes.
This however, must be premised on a democratic framework in which the governance aspirations of the Guyanese electorate by way of free and fair elections must be respected and which must become the foundational principles of any future power-sharing arrangement.

Hydar Ally

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