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Whither Guyana?

Jul 26, 2020 Editorial

Fraudulent elections – an infamous bragging right of Guyana. Just when we thought that rigging of Guyana’s elections were dead and buried with Burnham and Hoyte, the Granger-led PNC has resurrected the harsh reality of rigging. From 1964 to 1985 and now in 2020, elections have been engineered and commandeered to benefit the PNC – and now the APNU+AFC of which the PNC is the main party.
In a week’s time, it would be five months since March 2020 elections. The PNC’s recalcitrance continues with an insistence that David Granger is sworn in amidst all the cleverly engineered but unproven allegations of fraud and mismanagement – which can only be litigated at an elections court.
Granger seems happy to swear in from a fraudulent Mingo declaration. Neither the March 2nd count nor the Recount showed the massively inflated numbers of votes per Mingo’s spreadsheet.
Meanwhile, the plight of Guyanese is ignored by Granger and his team. No proposal or discussion has emerged to address the suffering of the people. What exactly they would do for Guyana if they form the next Government? The tragedy of the Harmon/Nagamootoo-led COVID task force is a sad but real example of a Granger-led government.
What is clear is that Granger wants to remain as President at all – or any – cost. What is unclear is how he hopes to govern. And, of increasing concern is a Granger-government’s ability to take the country forward.
Sanctions aside, Guyana faces serious challenges ahead. Presently we do not have a Parliament that can vote funds toward any sector. More importantly, the sourcing of such funds will be a nightmare.
How will the productive sector be expected to produce within a paradigm of export/import restrictions? The labour-intensive rice and sugar sectors are dependent on imported fertilizers and chemicals – all in the face of the continuous slide of the exchange rates, sanctions notwithstanding.
Our oil potential has already been mis-managed and decimated by poor leadership and wanton disregard by the incumbent and, the oil revenues are not within the reach of an illegitimate government.
Meanwhile, the health sector is reeling from the shortage of pharmaceuticals across all primary and secondary health facilities.
The bloated public service is not a productive sector and the extractive industries cannot feed the nation. A bleak future can be discerned regardless of how one may tweak the permutations.
And finally, what is even more dangerous for Guyana is the end to any future credible elections. The PNC wants to stay in power for the foreseeable future. Never again could a general election be held in Guyana in which the PNC can conceivably embrace any oversight or conclusion by any foreign-based group.
CARICOM, Carter Center and other agencies will not be allowed to observe – and in any case, if they do observe, their reports will not be accepted. GECOM itself will continue to be threatened. Granger has shown a propensity to manipulate GECOM and direct its affairs – or, tie it up in continuous court action. GECOM may, again, become an arm of the PNC – even more than it is presently with the unambiguous signals of the Chief Elections Officer.
With regards to any “negotiation”, the political parties opposed to Granger have signalled an unwillingness to negotiate under the duress of an illegal government. And in any case, such negotiations may fail for lack of trust. After all, if the incumbent can perverse the Constitution, how can it be held to any agreement?
This ominous and foreboding future faces Guyana – which only four years ago dreamed of massive wealth and development to compete with the most developed countries of the world. Unfortunately, all of this has been cast into the pit of racist and opportunistic aggrandizement of a man who seems bent of recreating the aura of a “maximum leader” and whose eyes seem to be set on the title as the First Dictator of the 2020s.

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