Democracy and the PNC/R are not compatible

Jun 03, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – It is really asking too much for anyone, much less the PPP/C government, to expect the PNC/R to be a responsible opposition. In so far as the PNC/R is concerned, the two – responsible and opposition – do not intersect.
It is a big task to expect that PNC/R to behave in a democratic manner when for most of its history, it has spurned democratic conduct while in and out of government. The PNC/R has a reputation to uphold as a party, living in a political cocoon which belongs to the distant past when it rigged elections as easy as someone chewing gum.
The PNC/R has a sordid record of electoral malpractice. It rigged the 1968, 1973, 1980 and 1985 elections and attempted to benefit from attempts to rig the 2020 elections.
In each of those successive elections, the rigging became more glaring, brazen and barefaced. Peter D’Aguiar, a former ally of the PNC, said this about the 1968 elections: “To call it an election is to give it a name it does not deserve; it was a seizure of power by fraud, not election.”
The 1973 elections were branded as “fairy tale elections”. The British Parliamentary Group of Observers described the 1980 elections as being more “crooked than barbed wire.”
The PNC/R also distorted the 1978 referendum which gave it power to change the Constitution without resort of the people’s consent via a referendum. That led to the establishment of an Executive Presidency and the deepening of authoritarian rule which reached its apogee when it was forced to pass a law to overrule a court decision. It also led to a spate of human rights violations.
A section of the PNC attempted to abort the 1992 elections. The supporters of one former PNC strongman attempted to storm the offices of the then Guyana Elections Commission on Croal Street. They later went on a rampage throughout the city by rioting, looting and committing arson. And this was even before the official results had been declared.
It went on similar rampages after its loss in 1997, almost bringing the country to its knees and it is no coincidence that politics and criminality came together in a toxic brew after the 2001 elections. Since 1992, the PNC/R has never conceded in an election, which it lost and it never will. But it did not claim foul play in the 2006 elections which it lost comprehensively.
The PNC/R is not committed to constitutional rule. It only accepts its understanding of the Constitution. Following the no-confidence motion in December of 2018, the PNC/R trampled upon the Constitution, rewrote the Mathematics textbook and gave the world a lesson in how to prevaricate in holding elections.
The PNC/R supported some dubious challenges to the March 2020 elections. Guyana was turned into an international laughing stock by those who were prepared to hang on to power on the flimsiest of threads.
The PNC/R cannot be reformed. It is beyond political redemption. It had enough time, including five years in office to demonstrate it had put its sordid past behind it.
It failed to do so and in fact, its actions confirmed that it was prepared to be returned to power through electoral skullduggery.
Oil and water do not mix. You do not invite the devil into a church; you do not invite thief men into a police conference. So why would anyone want to have a party, with an established track record of electoral rigging, to participate in democratic elections? Democracy and the PNC/R simply are not compatible.
The international community, however, sees the need for an Opposition. But the PNC/R cannot be part of that process since it abhors democratic practices. Even in spite of the opinions of the international community that the 2020 general and regional elections were free and fair, the PNC/R still shamelessly peddles the narrative that the elections were marred with irregularities and that the government is installed.
The PNC/R belongs to the past, a dictatorial and authoritarian past. It will be more comfortable in totalitarian countries such as North Korea where the power is concentrated in the hands of an all-powerful Leviathan.
The PPP/C has to act in accordance with the Constitution. But it must not fuss and fret about the PNC/R. That party is not going to ever be a responsible Opposition within a democratic framework. It is committed to a style of politics which is completely alien to democratic politics. The AFC is the PNC/R’s spin-twin in the APNU+AFC. It has been discredited because of its association with the PNC/R and its complicity in that party’s electoral narrative. The AFC should tie nuptials with the PNC/R and become a permanent married couple. They deserve each other. (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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