Casting the ballot, casting oneself in stone

Aug 13, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

---

Kaieteur News – If I were to say Vote PPP, that would be the sweetest thing for a good fraction of the electorate. If I were to say Vote PNC, that would be interpreted as almost as good by another portion of Guyana’s electoral population.

Depending on the results, I could be hailed as heroic; or denounced as ‘haram.’ Now, if I were to say Vote WIN, I could be sanctioned in more ways than can be imagined. Democracy or tyranny? Democracy or hypocrisy, or a special type of immorality? The liberty is taken to add indecency and plain ole stupidity at its rawest.

Having said the above, it’s only fair that fellow citizens have the clearest idea of my own voting position. For the third time, I haven’t decided whether I’m going to vote. But regardless of which political group I vote for, that should not make me an enemy of the State. Or of the people. Or any party. In theory, that is powerful. In practice, it is what makes me and other citizens incorrigibles, lepers and outcasts, fit only for the company of the likes of Nicolas Maduro. For me, it doesn’t matter, I could give a damn.

But what about other Guyanese, who recoil from such classifications? More importantly, what about the democracy of which so much is loved, and so much is spoken? Guyanese high and low, and throughout this society, are fond of insisting about how much they are for democracy and its ideals. Lovely. Then, they don’t have the luxury of being selective; can’t convert themselves to an on-off switch. Meaning, when they are strongly for its tenets, and when they turn a blind eye. Democracy doesn’t work that way; and if there is one plank on which I am absolute about, democracy is it. Not as a fiction of political speech. But as a way of life.

Anyone can say anything about me, and as long as it possesses the fullness of truth, and is within the law, he or she has that right. No matter how unpleasant and offensive, no matter the despicable history of the speaker or writer. I reserve the same rights, but hope that there are never grounds for me to engage in the offensive. Unpleasant cannot be avoided in what has been made into a calling, part of the job description.

Offensive may be necessary, on occasion, but should never be found compulsory. Never what just must be to deliver that most pungent and deforming of hammer blows. Others can thrill to such lowlife or highbrow actions. My thrill is to speak with the skill that I have, and let that speak for itself. Country is served. In focusing so much on party (tribal) success, and pleasing demagogic leaders, and following the mob, that sacred element of birthright that is called country too often gets lost in the maze of madness.

If there are 100 other citizens of Guyana, in Guyana, who think along these lines, and conduct themselves in a close enough manner, then what a different society Guyana could be. But how can it be anything other than what it is, when there are those Guyanese who called themselves devout men and women, but still hold onto and fetch around the hurts from 60-70 years ago? And to that mass of citizens, there is no choice but to add that other mass of disappointed and psychically devastated Guyanese from five years ago. This is not pleasing stuff, nor is it found inoffensive by some, many. But there’s persevering, there cannot be any turning back. Even if there was such thinking or faltering, that beast cannot be fed. Be assured that neither has struck to this point.

Half of this life has been given to America. Today, I shrink when twisted faces and snarling voices have come to represent the face and voice of America. But they say that’s democracy. Yes, but by whose standards and for whom? This fraction of life is now dedicated to Guyana, and the last thing that I will reel from are more disfigured faces and wrath-filled voices. But that is also held out as, insisted to be, democracy at its broadest and grandest. It could be that decades of education now languish in a mental wasteland. The same is said for a lifetime of self-education. Guyanese either mature and learn to grow up in the profoundest senses of those words, or a premature birth state is all that would be known.

This is the Guyana that results, when the first words out of one citizen’s mouth in response to those found disagreeable is that he is a PPP man, or she is a PNC fanatic. What prospects for democracy, then? Guyana may still pass as a point on a map, but little else.

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

---

• ballot, GHK Lall, Guyana Elections, PNC, PPP, voting

---