Oh man, that 2020 election again!

Mar 09, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – When my kid at 10 years was preparing for what we in Guyana generally refer to as the “Common Entrance” examination, she took afternoon lessons with the famous teacher, Wilfred Success in West Ruimveldt.
I would drop her off, then, pick up my wife from GOINVEST after work, then, instead of going home only to go out again to West Ruimveldt, we would roam the seawall as they say, “to kill time.” One of our favourite places was the beach at Lusignan. We spent many afternoons enjoying that site.
Last week we were heading up the East Coast so we turned into the Lusignan seashore to invoke memories. We had not been to that site since our kid completed her “Common Entrance.” The beach is completely gone – lost to the relentless encroachment of mangroves, which of course is a geological advantage.
As we were leaving the area, we drove slowly to observe the changes. Near to the seashore, this gentleman was clearing the parapet outside his home. He beckoned to me and I stopped. He said he liked my columns, and he enjoyed my take on Eusi Kwayana. Then he said, “yuh writing too much on the election though.” I agreed but told him it was one of the most important events in Guyanese history and that it will remain so as long as Guyana is alive. With a broad smile, he said, “yuh right.”
So here I am writing on the March 2020 election. Will I stop? No. Context is everything. At my age, I don’t think I want to resurrect my anti-dictatorship activism, and if there was a successful rigged election in March last year, I would have had to do that. If there was a successful rigged election last year, I don’t know if my daughter and her generation would have had a future.
So here I am since March 4, 2020 once more looking at the general election. This analysis here is a response to Vincent Alexander’s reply to me in KN of March 4. In last Sunday’s Stabroek News, Lincoln Lewis asserts that the PPP is an illegal government. Moses Nagamootoo after a year of disappearance has resurfaced to claim the Americans rigged the election for the PPP. Both Alexander and Lewis have propagandized about the fiction of the PPP tampering so often therefore, a reader may be inclined to ask why not ignore them.
One cannot do so because every argument, every point, every large word, every small newspaper letter, every enlightened opinion exposing people like Alexander, Lewis and Nagamootoo add to the body of historical knowledge that will educate generations to come.
A rejection to these three men is based on simple facts that democratic citizens and patriotic Guyanese must keep repeating. Alexander and Lewis in their newspaper publications claimed the election was fixed by the PPP. What is so strange about that?
Both men have not and cannot produce one source from any country’s government, any global organization, any legislator from any nation that supported their claim. This in itself is a record. A disputed national election in any country follows a well-known pattern. The sore loser who is the incumbent has his/her backers who they cultivated when they were in power.
In the Guyana election, not one government in the world supported the PNC’s claim. Not one US legislator accepted a PNC victory. Not one of the 10 opposition parties that contested the election has accepted that the PPP rigged the poll. Not one observer group concluded that the results were unacceptable.
Of course, the PNC could enjoy massive support around the world if it could secure an audience with the UN or the American government or the CARICOM Heads of State and show them where their statements of poll (SOPs) point to a PNC victory. In fact, the PNC’s own partner, the AFC, has not seen the SOPs, according to Dominic Gaskin.
Perhaps the most comical aspect of the accusation of PPP tampering lies in the composition of GECOM. Three of its commissioners represent the PNC. Its chairperson shows not an ounce of pro-PPP bias. The Chief Elections Officer and his deputy with other GECOM Secretariat staff have been charged by the state, which is currently led by a PPP government so they could not have been sympathetic to the PPP during the voting.
How then did the PPP got around committing electoral fraud that twisted the results? And given the widespread fraud, why did GECOM verify the results for nine of the 10 Regions on the morning of Wednesday, March 4. We have an obligation to our young generation to expose the PNC and AFC and their surrogates.

(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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