Elections’ victory

Feb 25, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall 

Kaieteur News- The Opposition PNC is confident of victory at the upcoming polls.  The PPP Government has predicted its own victory, and by a landslide.  Whether this turns out to be two winners or two losers, one thing is certain.  Guyanese are going to be the biggest losers -the have nots in the demographic.  So, who has it right in this existential struggle for command of the next five years in this glorious El Dorado?  Now coming to life, but so lacking in the lifegiving to ordinary citizens?  This is where I stand in February.  It will be unchanging; grow stronger as the days multiply.

Biometrics is out.  The opposition, every component that qualifies for that categorization, is for biometrics.  The government hemmed and hawed.  It is not as foolproof, as marketed.  Time is needed.  Strange, since the opposition has been beating the biometrics drum, forever seemingly.  Any system, any element, that minimizes the opportunity and reality of electoral fraud has my ok.  Sorry, but I didn’t reach as far as X in the alphabet.  Now, here is a consideration for all Guyanese-natural born, naturalized, or unnaturally sculpted: since biometrics is such a showstopper and gamechanger, (a matter of electoral life-and-death), then the opposition has, for all intents and purposes, painted itself into a corner.

There is the reality of no biometrics in front of it, crushing its spirit, with its back against an unmoving wall, and no place to go.  The significance of this is that the opposition, in good faith, cannot accept the elections results, if it loses.  First question: how can it accept a result that has condoned fraud, is riddled with fraud, a staple in local polls?  Having drawn its line in the sand using the brightest colours in its paint repertoire (biometrics), flawed elections with numbers to prove, looks like the only result, given a suspected bloated list.  What started out with fraud, continued with fraud, could only end up with fraud.

Would the PNC, could the AFC, live with that big, fat, elections lie?  And after pounding biometrics as the salvation that never generated proper official interest, and ran out of that oxygen called time.  I think that the stage is set for some differences that are sure to be raw, rancorous, and roiling.  Guyana has long had that kind of elections milieu.  Oh, and one more thing: it is either the differences that generate resistance.  Or surrendering to another five years of the PPP’s version of paradise.  It has its own limited number of specially blessed inhabitants, and is not the kind spoken of in sacred scriptures.  Take to the road, or the long road of the next five years hovers into sight.  Something whispers to me that there will have to be some sharing of ideas about compromise, notwithstanding shrill public postures from everyone.

But there are still more negatives for the PNC, AFC, WPA, and whichever new group, the PPP stealthily inserts inside the opposition tent.  The opposition has its work cut out for it, and its work ethic does not impress.  The odds heavily favour the sitting government, the controller of all things in elections Guyana.  Did somebody ask what about GECOM?  Okay, what about it?  Who is it, what is it, and where does it live?  Moving along nicely, I see the first handicap as V4V.  Subtitles: Venezuelans for Votes.  Whether 10,000 or 20,000, their votes will count.  Unsurprisingly, all in the PPP cup.  There is always space for more votes.  The second handicap are those cash grant tricks: one for the ticket, one for partying, and one for saving.  Think overseas Guyanese and those voters rushing here to prove their voter loyalty.  Not to country, but to party.  It’s a different kind of patriotic fever in this country.  PNC voters could be part of the returning foreign contingent, since passage is on the house.  Freedom House, that is.  Whatever the boost for the PNC, AFC, and WPA at the polls, the PPP has its own bigger boost.  Remember these words, points.  Now, there is a new handicap (number three) for the opposition, as if a bloated list is not enough.  Ever hear about deportees?  Whoever in Guyana didn’t, just had that forced into their tympanic membrane.

Sure, 1236 Guyanese deportees will not be a huge difference maker.  But what about those deportees from other countries?  Let me write the script for President Ali’s announcement.  ‘The Guyana Government will accept non-Guyanese deportees, in a gesture of solidarity and a spirit of cooperation with the US.  I have visions of Mohamed Irfaan Ali as Guyana’s Statue of Liberty: give me your rejects, your detritus, your unruly and undocumented.  Welcome to Guyana, the America of the South, the Dubai to the West.  Depending on the number of such non-Guyanese, the opposition elections goose just got broiled and braised and burnt to ashes.  I can hear the protests: to accept non-Guyanese would be unconstitutional and un-Guyanese.  To reject them is sure to be Un-American and undoing America for Americans.  Yeah, that kind that is an eerie imitation of One Guyana.  Bottom line: the opposition has a hard electoral road to travel, and a rough-rough way to go.  It’s not Jimmy Cliff.  It is elections Guyana.

(Elections’ victory)

(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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