From the Diaspora… OLD HABITS HARD TO DIE
By Ralph Seeram. August 3, 2014, By KNews, Filed Under News, Source - Kaieteur News
It was like an excursion; busloads of PNC supporters travelling from poll station to poll station in Berbice to vote. There was much merriment; everybody was so happy committing election fraud. But who could object, the entire electoral process was controlled by the PNC. It was blatant for all to see that the election was being rigged.
I had suggested to some friends not to waste their time to go voting as they have already voted. Many persons approached me saying they were turned away at the voting booth because they had voted already. On the Corentyne, PPP supporters were desperately trying to ensure that their representatives accompanied the ballot boxes. We know that some were murdered by GDF soldiers in that process.
The ballot boxes were confiscated by the GDF, flown to the GDF headquarters, where after nearly a week, the results declared that the PNC had won the election.
Those election frauds in Berbice are a firsthand experience, not an account of what people said. I was there as a reporter back in the 70s. I knew the principal PNC players that engaged in electoral fraud back then. It’s not a period I like to relive.
Now do you know who was PNC point man in charge of the Berbice Region at the time? Oscar Clarke, the same Oscar Clarke who is in the middle of the allegations of electoral fraud at the PNC Congress last weekend.
Most of the older folks must have got over that sad period in Guyanese history. Certainly the young Guyanese who now comprise the majority of voters never experienced that and probably don’t care whether the PNC rigged elections, or how times were “hard” or how “suit case traders” and the “barrel” economy kept Guyana afloat back then.
I have said in these columns that the PPP cannot win elections by carping on the PNC past; it does not mean anything to the young voters of today; that was until this last weekend at the PNC Congress. It brought back vivid memories of the PNC dictatorship.
Just when I thought the PPP would be vulnerable at the next elections, when I think the PPP is at its weakest, the PNC handed it a great propaganda tool, and probably will ensure that the PPP wins the next election. The allegations that the PNC rigged its own internal elections are very creditable. This is coming from their most senior people like Carl Greenidge and the very people that were challengers to David Granger for the leadership of the PNC, Aubrey Norton and Sharma Soloman.
The fiasco of last weekend’s PNC Congress has been well publicized, but the party history of allegedly rigging it own election goes back to previous Congresses. There was a cloud over the previous one when Carl Greenidge and David Granger vied for the leadership of the PNC. After three recounts or so of a few hundred votes Granger was declared winner.
This last PNC congress had left the party badly wounded and probably reinforced into young voters’ minds that the PNC is a party that rigs election.
Young voters have heard of the PNC rigged elections “back in the day”. They heard of the difficult times lining up to get basic food items, as how they are lining up to see artistes at the Providence Stadium.
They only experienced the “good” times; they can go in stores and buy anything “foreign”. More of them own their own homes and cars etc. Now reports of the PNC rigging elections must have been recessed way back in their minds. After this last weekend many would now tend to believe that “the thing must be true, if they can do it to their own people to hold on to power, what would they do if they get in power again”.
After turning this over in their minds a few times I am sure they will come to the conclusion that they cannot take a chance on a party with a history of rigging elections.
All I am basically trying to say is that no single party in Guyana can get that magical 50% votes based on ethnic voting. They have to get cross over or some would say swing voters to win the election. Despite what some would say the PPP did achieve that; the party had to cross the racial divide to win elections. This recent episode at the PNC congress is not going to help the PNC attract these voters. In fact I am sure it will “turn them off” from the PNC.
Of course the PPP is going to “beat it to death” but the PPP should not flatter itself. It too indulged in a little skullduggery into steering who it wanted to be in the leadership at its Congress also.
And speaking of PPP, it was so laughable to hear the PNC blame the PPP for the fiasco at its congress. It is so lame. I am sure the PNC could have conjured up a better excuse. Blaming the PPP and at the same breath say Aubrey Norton and his Linden followers were well financed, is certainly implying that Norton and his Linden contingent were collaborating with the PPP to wreck the Congress.
They came in red shirts instead of Granger’s preferred color, green. Some branded him a traitor, so much for democracy PNC style.
If I were Norton I would have quit that party; there is no future for him there and he knows it. He has been sidelined from Parliament and is now being branded a traitor. If Norton is serious about helping his constituents he might as well align himself to a party that will assist him in that direction. It’s certainly not the PNC.
Norton for the most part was responsible for the PNC/APNU victory at the last elections. The PNC should not take the Linden voters for granted; it saw what happened at the 2006 elections when the AFC made inroads at Linden.
The PPP at the same time should not be gloating; it has been doing the same thing that is occurring in the PNC, pushing out the old stalwarts of the party for the “Johnnies come lately”. Besides, the PPP has quite a few “skeletons in its closet also”
Ralph Seeram can be reached at email: ralph365@hotmail.com or on Facebook.
