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Old is cold!
Kaieteur News – Reactions have been raining about the various candidates who are expected to contest for the post of Leader of the People’ National Congress/ Reform (PNC/R). But none of those comments has questioned the commitment of any of the prospective candidates to democracy.
It is truly amazing that all manner of assessments are being made about the various prospective candidates but none concerns the involvement (or lack of involvement) in defending or opposing the attempts which were made to rig the 2020 General and Regional Elections. It is almost as if this issue was a footnote in the country’s politics.
In order to justify its actions during the five-month period from March to August 2020, the party created a narrative about dead and migrated people voting. During the Recount exercise, it engaged in attempting to frustrate the process by raising all manner of fanciful objections. The Caricom Team, which observed this process, described this attempt as a “fishing expedition”.
The PNC/R must not assume that the party’s attempt to install itself in government through fraudulent means is going to be forgotten even by its own supporters. It is not going to be because those actions brought shame and disgrace to the country, to the party and to its supporters.
There are many supporters of the PNC/R who do not support dishonesty. While they may have wanted to win the 2020 general and regional elections, they did not wish for this victory to be achieved through rigging. Not everyone wants a victory by any means. This was evident in the reaction of some persons to the Esther Pereira case. In that matter, the PNC/R had filed an election petition against the results of the 1997 General and Regional Elections.
When the 1997 elections were vitiated in 2000, there was, initially a mood of euphoria but this soon dissipated when the party’s supporters realised the grounds upon which the results were vitiated.
In her decision, the judge annulled the elections results on the basis that the use of the voter ID card was unconstitutional. The PNC/R supporters had to have been led to believe that the elections would have been overturned on the basis on discredited results. But the court found that while there were irregularities, it could not pronounce on whether these would have altered the overall results.
Many of the supporters of the PNC/R were disappointed rather than pleased because as much as they wanted to be declared the winner – which they were not – they did not wish any victory to be based on technicalities. They wanted to win and win fairly and squarely.
So far, no one had insisted that the future Leader of the PNC/R should be someone who is untainted by the attempts to support or benefit from the rigging of the elections. But there is bound to be a significant segment of the party’s support base that would not have been pleased by the actions of some persons who were bent on benefitting from rigged elections.
The PNC/R must not confuse renewed support for the party with the restoration of political credibility. The party at present lacks political credibility. The PNC/R was exposed in front of the Caribbean and the international community. It was shamed and disgraced.
The fallout continues. Guyana’s Court of Appeal is now coming under scrutiny and its decisions during the elections’ impasse are now the subject of an academic study undertaken at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus.
Guyana was long respected for the quality of its jurisprudence but now that quality is being placed under the microscope. Unfortunate indeed!
The future of the PNC/R must involve restoring credibility to the party. There is a big difference between enjoying support and enjoying credibility. The PNC/R lacks political credibility because of what happened between 2nd March 2020 and 2nd August 2020.
The future leader of the PNC/R must be a person who will stand untainted by that process. Otherwise, the party will find that despite maintaining its core support, it lacks the credibility needed to have any chance of doing well after 2025.
In this regard, age will be an important factor in the choice of the new leader of the PNC/R. The PNC/R has no chance of winning the 2025 elections. It has to look to 2030, nine years from now and therefore has to groom a young leader during that period.
(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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