International and local observers: Not some but all

May 14, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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In my column yesterday, I submitted that David Hinds’ interpretations of the election tragedy are so numerous that it will take several articles to confront deeply disturbing positions he has on the meaning of elections and the importance of free and fair elections.
Many of his statements are pregnant with distortions that when a study is made of the election saga long after now unless these falsehoods are analytical exposed they can creep into the history books. For a professor who ought to know better, David’s fictional permutations and deliberate misdirections are completely unacceptable.
Here are two egregious fictions for which there can be no rebuttal. I will warn David not to further damage his credibility by rebutting them. They cannot be rejected without the accusation of dishonesty being introduced into the polemic. I will quote his exact words so there can be no grey areas.
The first distortion – “Freddie and others have relied on PPP’s evidence and those of some observer missions.” This is palpably untrue. All the international and local observers have designated the 2020 election as flawed including two past CARICOM prime ministers and our own CARICOM team. By using the word “some”, then he has to name those missions that either supported Mingo’s action or stayed silent. There is none.
The second mischief is contained in the very quote – “PPP’s evidence.” What David and the fanatical APNU+AFC intellectual supporters have done is introduce two red herrings. First, the election fiasco is a battle between the PPP and the PNC and, secondly, cite colonial behaviour of the West to judge their pronouncements on the 2020 poll.
What is repugnant about these two deceptions? The PPP’s evidence is the documents that were given to the 10 opposition parties by GECOM. There is no such thing as “PPP’s statements of poll (SOPs).” What the PPP has were pasted up on the buildings where people voted including those building that David were in on elections day, so he must have seen that action by the election officials. David as a candidate was allowed in those buildings so he must have seen party agents taking photographs of the SOPs. Other opposition parties have given their SOPs to international observers.
This columnist has seen SOPs that were shown to the media and they were not PPP’s evidence. Sadly for those who want to paint the canvas as PPP versus PNC, the so-called PPP evidence turned out to prove that Mingo rigged the 2020 election because the recount showed exactly that. There are people out there who, fearful of the decline of the PNC and AFC, will not accept even what is inside those ballot boxes that are being recounted. But for all intent and purpose, the cry of PPP evidence has lost its bite. It never had a bite in the first place.
Here is another quote from David’ “But he (Freddie) is not entitled to create his context and fit other people neatly into them.” But this very crime he accuses others of, he is perpetuating on the Guyanese people. David Hinds has introduced an ocean of irrelevant contexts to justify a process of electoral fraud. When you speak about fraud, he said election is not the issue. So what is the issue? The ones he planted on his canvas and when you reject them as dangerously misleading, then, you are the one who is not seeing the right contexts.
Let us describe some of his erroneous contexts of which I have dealt with two above – only some observer missions have spoken out, and people like me are relying on PPP evidence. Obviously, there is a huge insult in the second wrong context of David. Since we cannot think for ourselves then we have naively accepted what the PPP told the nation. But he, David knows better so he rejected the PPP’s mischief. This compels one to ask; is there mischief of GECOM and APNU+AFC?
Here is another Hinds’ red herrings. “I have looked at what has happened since March 2 and concluded that there is a convergence of factors and forces.” Guyana has deep ethnic problems that are disastrous but how can you introduce that as a rampart for election riggers? Rigging of election is a question for this entire nation to decide on. It is not a battle between PPP and PNC. When a country accepts rigged elections, then, people’s right to vote is taken away. That is the quintessential issue facing us at the Convention Centre. After we uphold free and fair elections then let us move to things like factors and forces that preoccupies David. That preoccupation is justified for I have them too.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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