A contextual, strategic appeal to President Ali

Mar 19, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

---

Kaieteur News – In the context of what emerged with the unsuccessful attempts to rig the March 2020 general election, the ruling PPP is going to face relentless implacability from the PNC and their emotionally and racially driven intellectual surrogates. I don’t think there is going to be an abatement period; not even before 2025, when the next poll is due.
Two reasons explain this – race and permanent power loss. First, the surrogates saw the 2020 battle as a zero sum game in which the Indian PPP must never rule again. Their determinant then is to keep telling Black people that an India group, the PPP, did not win the election but the APNU+AFC did. David Hinds, Vincent Alexander, ACDA, the remnants of the WPA and others of their ilk will play that song non-stop. The song has to be played because the humiliation will be great if it is stopped. After so much energy to keep that composition alive, how can you then tell Black people, you accept the 2020 election results?
Secondly, the PNC is facing the possibility of the permanent loss of power. They have no strategy and will have no strategy on winning elections in the future. But strategy or no strategy, the PNC cannot acquire enough votes in the future to win. Most humans believe an opposition is necessary in a democracy but the PNC (not APNU+AFC) is going to continue to get weaker and weaker. Against this reality, the PNC and their surrogates will not accept any direction or policy of the government and will couple that rejection with vicious political nastiness.
How does the ruling party strategize given this reality? There are three pathways. Compromise with the PNC, which will embolden the PNC to preach to their supporters that the PPP is asking for peace because they know they stole the election.
The second pathway is to confront the PNC. This is fraught with danger. If there is an organization with nothing to lose, then fighting to destabilize the country is its leaders’ only option and they will use it.
The third direction is to reach out to stakeholders, other communities (e.g. women and youth groups), credible sections of civil society, responsible trade unions, the capitalist environment, the media, etc, and discuss the shape of governance with them. Under this third direction there needs to be a strengthening of Guyana’s relations with its global friends – the West, CARICOM, India, etc.
Within this framework then, there has to be careful thought into the shape of the impending judicial commission of inquiry into the March 2020 election rigging. I appeal to President Ali, do not strategize wrongly. Do not appoint local Indians, Africans and Portuguese to comprise the commission.
Afro-Guyanese will be denounced by the PNC, AFC and their surrogates as Blacks who are puppets of an Indian government. Indians will be classified as closet PPP aficionados who are personal friends of PPP leaders. A Portuguese Guyanese to head the commission will be dubbed a local White who does not like Afro-Guyanese.
There will be PPP leaders who will say that the government should not let the PNC dictate the shape of the commission because the PNC is in a truculent mood. They will argue the government must do what it must do. That is not good strategizing. You do not play into the hands of the enemy if you have room to manoeuvre. With the election inquiry, the government does.
There were two commissions that were staffed by non-Guyanese – the Walter Rodney Inquiry and the shooting of three protestors in the electricity protest in Linden in 2012. The PNC accused the chairman of the Rodney Commission of being sympathetic to Rodney. Think of what the PNC and their surrogates will do to local Guyanese who sit on the commission.
My recommendation is for purely, and I stress the word “purely” outsiders to comprise a 10-person commission. The unsuccessful rigging of the election was a global disgrace. The evidence of that, with hundreds of video clips to strengthen it, will be seen by the commissioners. The more commissioners you have, the more credible will be their findings in the international community.
Cost will be a factor but if the government can afford it, then a seven or eight or 10-person commission should be the policy. Try to get Commonwealth jurists, particularly from Jamaica. A good place to look should be Ireland. That is a country whose image is well liked around the world. Past American legislators, particularly outstanding former members of the Black caucus should be looked at. Under no circumstances, should there be selections from India. You will give your enemy ammunition to defeat you.

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

---

---