Money and the elections 

Sep 10, 2025 Letters

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Dear Editor,

In the aftermath of the General and Regional Elections, a widely held view that persists to this day is that money played a major, if not a defining role particularly in respect to the mobilisation of WIN supporters.

Because there is no legislation to treat effectively with campaign financing as an offence, there is no legal prohibition or enforcement mechanism to limit the use of money in any shape or form to advance a political party’s electoral objectives. In modernist philosophical circles, there is a prevailing view that ‘money is nothing, yet it flows everywhere and mediates between everything.’ Put in a local context, during the past five years of the PPP/C administration Guyanese would have benefited from new and innovative advances in the social sector and from the marked increase in money circulation that benefited Guyanese of all classes and social strata.

At the same time, what the flow of money did was to create a yearning by many to climb out of poverty, to bring relief from the cost-of-living, improvements in the home, a dinner or lunch at a restaurant and being able to spend quality time with family even a holiday.

Promises made by the PPP/C during the election campaign, when realised, will undoubtedly see more gushes of money in circulation. This time, the promise not to bypass the less fortunate will, hopefully, be kept. In our midst, there are those who love money, want money or crave for more, not just the crisp thousand- or five-thousand-dollar notes but even the crinkled old ones passed around from hand to hand every day and everywhere. So advanced has the means of exchange become that electric money can be sent via a text message to a smart phone and a deposit of say over five thousand and more can be made.

Money is said to be ‘the root of all evil’: but there are exceptions. A banker turned theologian is now a professor at Princeton University in the United States. He lectures on business ethics, and a course; ‘How to Succeed without Selling Your Soul.’

Contrast that with ‘The Beatles’ ‘Money can’t buy love’ and how it can buy that and much more. For example; it just bought a huge chunk of APNU’s traditional supporters. There’s no limit to what money can do for say, a sleazy politician seeking a position of power. Recent elections experience in Guyana has shown convincingly that people wittingly or unwittingly fall into the money trap irrespective of who gives it and for what purpose so long as it can buy what is badly needed for the home or a vote for a party campaigning to win government or seats in parliament.

Unable to distinguished between need and want some people, irrespective of social status find it hard to resist the allure of money. It can turn people into consummate consumers, making it difficult for them to turn away from things needed for the home or children that can be bought only with cash in hand. Under such conditions, the unscrupulous politician would use money as a means to a vote-getting end.

If poverty makes a critical mass feel marginalized and restless, vulnerable and angry ready to be ‘roped in’ by any charlatan or demagogue who comes along making promises to give them ‘the sky and the moon,’ people become gullible and obsessed with the need for money. Consequently, anything goes; from temptation to commit a crime of any sort, to engage in corrupt practices. As we watch unmoved, eighteen years’ old school-drop outs and others become impervious to corruption even selling their votes to those who present themselves as ‘Lord and Saviour.’

In the course of the elections campaign, we witnessed many who were politically disillusioned, become energized, clamoring for change, while power-hungry politicians preyed on their vulnerabilities. In the circumstances, those not having money but needed it, became that person casting around for something new that they could be either part of or a beneficiary. Thus, where money was available in huge quantities and provided, it easily won votes by penetrating other parties strongholds, the gullible became victim and instrument at the same time.

The keen observer would have recognized that while money is in constant circulation, at the same time, it points towards values such as the biblical assertion that ‘Man shall not live by bread alone’ meaning, while the materials things of life can be bought with money there are other values such as spiritual nourishment, honor, compassion, empathy, honesty, love and happiness.

Yours faithfully,

Clement J. Rohee

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• Clement J. Rohee, Elections, money, WIN supporters

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