Guyana 2020: The positives

Feb 02, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – On the positive side of 2020, Guyana is not likely to see the repeat of Burnhamism. This country defeated PNC dictatorship for the second time – once in 1992 and August 2020. We have no evidence to go on but we would like to think that Guyanese in and out of this land have internalized the meaning of the defeat of rigged elections.
Had the PNC succeed in its rigging, we were going right back to the “invincible” mentality of Burnham. Guyana would have had policies enacted that came out of the head of its maximum leader even though they were irrelevant to the country (like mass games and compulsory national service) just as it happened with Forbes Burnham. The year 2020 must always be remembered for the final exposure of the PNC. That has to be the biggest positive of last year.
Secondly, I believe in 2020 we had seen the last of the Carter-Price article in the constitution that dictates the present shape of the election commission. Fifteen years ago, organizations like the OAS warned Guyana about the format of the elections commission. It was an enduring obscenity, never seen in another country. GECOM is effectively administered by the representatives of two political parties only – PPP and PNC. Nothing in politics could be more sickening.
Here now is a story about the inherent evil of the current shape of GECOM that happened last year that has never been given publicity because the then opposition PPP, the other small opposition parties and the press did not know about it. Lips remain tight in the PNC and AFC since July last year on this story. I doubt they will ever talk about it. I got it from inside the war room of the APNU+AFC. I assert that I trust my source deeply.
There was a plan to thwart a declaration based on the CARICOM observed recount should the Court of Appeal sustain the decision of the Chief Justice (ag) that the recount issue was settled by a higher court – the Caribbean Court of Justice. The three GECOM commissioners from APNU would resign together. With that occurrence, GECOM could not have convened to formally issue the election results. Granger would have taken his sweet time to nominate their replacements.
What this decision shows it is the congenital insanity that lie at the core of GECOM. If you have party personnel that administer a national election, why anyone thinks they are going to continue to administer the process when their party is losing? The year 2020 marked the final rites of GECOM as we know it. One would like to think that there cannot be a sane person anywhere in the world that would continue to support the election body of a country run by persons placed there by their respective political parties.
But there are more related positives to take from 2020. It is inevitable that election laws will change so as to make post-voting tampering almost impossible. One can anticipate two new directions. One is that all accredited observers will be allowed to be present during the counting, and two, statements of poll (SOPs) will be given to all observers, contestants and the media right after they have been signed off. GECOM of course will immediately upload those SOPs to its website.
One of the optimistic trends that we observed in 2020 was the non-political role of the army. Under Forbes Burnham, the army was reduced to a goon squad for Burnham’s insane politics. There is now concrete evidence that the army was part of the planning of the assassination of Walter Rodney. Former army boss, Godwin Mc Pherson, admitted that to a certain pro-PNC, racist trade union leader that the army was involved. David Hinds has betrayed Rodney because he was privy to that information. Let him deny it, and I will get more specific.
As the election rigging was taking place, the police force became compromised. Its involvement on the side of APNU+AFC was on full display. But the army maintained its distance during those five months. There were reports that the army displayed professional ethics in September after Indians were attacked, robbed and beaten in Region Five. There were several reports that army ranks came to the rescue of many victims.
Finally, the maturing of the young people of Guyana was definitely a plus for this country in 2020. They were part of several political parties that contested the elections and chose their country’s survival over ethnic loyalty. One hopes that this rise of consciousness will concretize in their psyche and shape a humane Guyana that will never see again what we saw in Region Five last September.

(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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