A Government for the People
Dear Editor
WITH the suspicious levels of active participation by foreign forces in our 2020 elections, it seems that a reminder might be necessary. A democracy is a system in which there is a Government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Any election in which foreign hands, hidden or not, are allowed or invited to participate cannot be good for the people. Such an election cannot lead to a Government by the people or for the people. Similarly, when a party chooses to commit electoral fraud and then attempt to cover up the crime by destroying evidence, such election cannot result in a
Government by the people. These are the two monsters our election commission (GECOM) must face today; foreign meddling and cover-up of fraud.
Let us look first at the cover-up of massive fraud. Forget the noise being made by the anti-government media in Guyana, for their editors are after sensational reporting at expense of good journalism. Above the noise coming from those media houses in Guyana, there is no disputing the fact that poll books and OLE’s are missing from several ballot boxes. This little act of not placing the records where they belong might be an oversight if there were one or two such cases. But when you have over three hundred missing poll books with over half of that in district 4, then that cannot be an anomaly – that is skullduggery! Without the poll books and the OLE’s in the boxes where they should be, there is no way to validate the ballots within those boxes. Those boxes and their votes therefore cannot be considered as credible, and any results that include those questionable votes must be suspect.
Any good election should be conducted with impartial observers who can give the public some more assurances that the results reflect the will of the people.
That is not what we have with our 2020 election observers. These observers were not seen to be impartial; they did not behave as though they are impartial, and they most definitely were not impartial. GECOM, with every good intent handed out observer credentials to every group wanting to ‘observe’ the most important election in our country.
The private sector commission which, unsurprisingly, makes the most noise today, masquerades as an impartial observer. The group’s subservience to the PPP/C makes a mockery of the concept of impartial election observers, and it further destroys GECOM’s ability to guarantee credible election results.
Then we have the international community. When we see diplomats behaving like undignified protesters at a Kavanaugh confirmation hearing, we begin to realize that hidden foreign hands are making mischief. Those foreign meddlers / mischief-makers understandably seek to pursue their interests. But foreign interference in an election is never good; Not good for Russia to interfere in Ukraine, not good for Russia to interfere in the US 2016 elections, and certainly not good for foreign interference in Guyana 2020.
Any election results influenced by foreign hands cannot reflect the will of the people, and therefore such Government would not be one by the people or for the people. Such a Government resulting from foreign meddling will be working for a foreign power at the expense of the people. Guyanese have long suffered the consequences of foreign manipulations. Our ethnic division,
which has plagued us for over half of a century, was brought upon us by foreign interference. That division, as we saw prior to 2015, resulted in cronyism enhanced by ethnicity. We witnessed blatant systemic racism, to the extent that even the television stations were all catering to Indian viewers – showing everything from Indian Professional League cricket, to Indian movies, Indian soap operas, and Indian religious programming. Rarely ever was there any programming in the entire country catering to Guyanese of other ethnicities. And let us not even talk about the illegal transfer of wealth into the hands of a few – all East Indians. That is for another article.
Guyanese lived with the prospect of foreign manipulation for decades. We lived with racism as well. Then in 2015, we had for the first time in the history of the country, a little hope of being able to finally rise above the challenges. We began to feel the ability to breathe. PPP stalwarts Moses
Nagamootoo and Khemraj Ramjattan, and PNC Leader David Granger agreed to put the past behind so that Guyanese may have a good future. Those brave leaders did what no Guyanese politician was able to do; they brought hope that we may finally heal that ethnic wound inflicted since the 1960s. It is now so sad to see that the PPP with support from hidden foreign hands trying to stop that healing process.
Guyanese must resist those attempts to again divide us. Guyana cannot make the mistakes of the 1960s when we allowed foreigners to divide us. Nagamootoo, Ramjattan, and Granger must continue the work to heal this nation.
Regards
Max Mohamed
https://guyanachronicle.com/20...XRibv4cRQbMyAywrnm04
