Guyana: SOPs and the insane fooling of people

Feb 12, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – My column of October 7, 2012, looked at the philosophical and psychological meaning of the old movie, “12 Angry Men.” I argued in that column that the human mind is capable of logical thinking no matter what obstacles are in its way. The point of the movie is that the mind will always come around to accepting reason, something that the ancient Roman Empire philosopher, Cicero, contributed to the study of philosophy.
Here is a brief recap of what I described in that column eight years ago. Eleven of the 12 jurors had made up their mind on a guilty verdict in a homicide trial. The odd man wasn’t convinced of the prosecutor’s case. For hours, the 11 jurors barraged, laughed and mocked him. But he was convinced the prosecutors’ case would hang an innocent youth.
As he highlighted the loopholes one by one, he began to create doubts in the mind of the 11 jurors. By the time he was done, he had made his conversion. The other 11 came to accept his arguments because reason prevailed in each of them. From a split verdict, the 11 joined the odd person and an acquittal resulted.
The supporters of the PNC, who think their party won the 2020 March election, believe so because their leaders told them so. The situation with the PNC and Trump in the US are identical. But at some point, reason has to come into play. It has been six months since a new government has been seated. Yet in that period the PNC continues to serenade its supporters with an insanely fictitious portrait. At some point those supporters have to start asking bitingly pertinent questions.
The simple request these supporters must insist on, for the sake of their dignity, is concrete proof from the PNC that it won. That proof lies in a collection of documents known as SOPs – statements of poll. The believers of Trump’s narrative that he won the presidential election in November, who are now accepting that he lied, are multiplying. Each day, you can read about one of them saying that he/she was misled.
Every PNC supporter must ask the reasonable question – If our party won, then the SOPs have to show that, so let the country see the SOPs. Reason comes into play here. Another simple query they must ask is: Why from March 13, 2020, when the Chief Elections Officer and the three PNC commissioners on GECOM accepted the declaration of a PNC victory, the PNC has never made its SOPs public?
No human can be that close-minded. They must know that something has to be wrong or strange in the PNC’s kingdom. The PNC’s adversary in the election, the PPP, claimed it won and it produced its SOPs and made them available online. Now here is where the fervent believer of the PNC’s victory has to start questioning the PNC leaders’ obligation to its supporters.
The CARICOM observed recount should have opened the eyes of every person that thought the PNC won, courtesy of this newspapers. This newspaper printed on its front page, the votes for each party from selected ballot boxes and they were not in sync with what the Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, announced. As the GECOM personnel went through the ballot boxes, the votes they counted were reflected in the SOPs the PPP had. Where were the PNC’s? At that point it was clear to the person whose mind is guided by reason that the numbers in the SOPs that the PPP had were not different from the numbers the GECOM counters found.
At that stage, the PNC should have levelled with its supporters. These supporters are humans. They ought to know when the game of fooling had collapsed. The PNC’s game of deceiving the citizens who gave them their votes was exposed by the frenetic refusal not to make public its SOPs.
But let’s assume that because of credibility, the PNC leaders could not have walked down the road of the availability of their SOPs, their constituencies who believed them since March 4, should have asked them why not. Even in filing their election petition, the PNC has not shown Guyanese their SOPs.
Surely, PNC supporters must know that the fooling has to stop. Another opportunity has presented itself for PNC constituencies to see that their party continues to disrespect them. The Chief Justice has ordered all SOPs from GECOM be lodged with the court. When the trial begins, and the evidence points to the SOPs from GECOM and the PPP being the same, will these innocent believers finally embrace reason? They are humans, they have to.

(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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