The perception is that electorally, we are just slightly ahead of Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua

Jun 09, 2022 Letters

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Dear Editor,

SN’s June 8 article, “Guyana gets low score for perception of elections integrity – after marred 2020 polls” refers. We are in the worst of places at the worst of times, which “low score” and “perception” about “elections integrity” confirm when they feature like this. For when such is the case, it is my belief that our entire system of governance is questioned, if not dismissed; our leaders in the government in place disdained and discredited; and our every effort and act under the umbrella and rhetoric of democracy crumble before an avalanche of the gravest suspicions, the worst of conclusions.
I continue to use the word “worst” since it fits so smoothly. The perception is that electorally, we are just slightly ahead of Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua, which all have something in common in lesser or stronger shades of black. I hesitate, but frankness necessitates-killer gangs, death squads, criminal militias, and their close cousins named extrajudicial executions. We are too dangerously close to that combined state prevalent in other locales, and that is not merely perception, but how the wind blows, smells, and tastes. On the one hand, we are flushed with the flavourings of ‘free and fair’ and, on the other, there is this icy shower of reality. Our entire apparatus of selecting a set of people to govern and lead has been, is, and will continue to be plagued by unmoving perceptions that the degree of integrity required for a credible elections process and result is just not there.
Incredibly, as indicated by a prior survey/poll, this perception of skullduggery stretches across into the winners’ enclosures. No less stupefying, there is the perception of widespread corruption at all levels (State Department report), but it ranks low down on the pole of Guyanese concerns. That may be so for money and business, but when the issue is elections, then we are in nuclear territory. It is why I suspect – indeed, there is the fear – that unless we work our hardest, be at our wisest, and come with our sincerest visions, then what we have will be sustained interminably, and that cannot be sustained either in the intermediate or longer term. I place no frame of time on the euphemism (‘intermediate’) that is employed deliberately. But, on something else, I must remove the gloves: we are poised on the precipice.
It is not of the sweetly and doggedly marketed prosperity that impacts only a few. The precipice is of the passions and prejudices that boil furiously right beneath the surface of this polity. If none other dare to face the pungency of our circumstances, I do. We cannot go on mouthing off about all the cascading positives touching this country when a sizable segment of the citizenry is condemned to the barren, outer edges. Handouts and hugs lack durability. I don’t think that any Guyanese in his or her right mind believes for a moment that that will hold indefinitely and tranquilly. Even if the perception of elections integrity was much better, the results of the polls reasonable, somewhat incontestable, it does not automatically translate to the acceptance that is compulsory for productive calmness. We are too tight numerically, too raw racially, too immersed historically, too committed politically.
Now I present perception of elections integrity in a different way. Winning means forever, be it by hook or crook; losing means death for the other, also possibly eternally. Whether perception or otherwise, who is going to roll over and pretend at surrender, the end result of which is nothing but racial and political death? We are not that mature or democratic or sophisticated yet; very far from it. We are neither that respectful nor appreciate nor tolerant of each other so far, and with each passing governmental and leadership outrage, when the daggers twist unwittingly or purposely, the bell tolls for this country. In the bluntest terms, it is that we have cannot hold. And if perception – real, manufactured, or incited – is what it takes to electrify us to these heaving states, then we are but a flicker away from being a Nicaragua or Honduras.
The irony is that I wrote earlier that this is ‘the worst of times.’ Ironic, indeed, because with the arrival of oil, it signalled the ascent of the worst in us. Sentiments settle over who is getting, who is being left out, who is being punished, and who is the big, bad, brutal bigot. Oil does that everywhere. And its presence is the equivalent of a Gorgon’s grimace, and Lot’s wife looking back: both freeze into stone. When I wrap my arms around the reality of Guyana, this is more than about the perception(s) of elections integrity. It is the dirty, ugly, deadly story of a country that gnaws at part of its soul on every occasion, and of the horrendous aftermaths with which we are left. In short, if there was no perception about elections integrity, then its invention works just as well.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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