The following words appeared at the end of my column yesterday suggesting that the PPP should ask itself; “What if the party never won?” That came about either because of an editorial mistake or otherwise, but I did not pen those words.
I believe from all that I have seen and information that I was privy to – information shared with me from professionally driven persons who are both Guyanese and foreigners, and who have not the slightest relationship with the PPP or care to have one – that when the tabulations were completed, the results showed a PPP victory.
I hereby reject any other decision, and will only accept a different outcome if those very credible people, on the basis of proof, offer a different result. A few days ago, in the National Park, a well known restaurant owner chatted with me over the election results. He said that he accepts the flawed process, because he does not want Jagdeo back in power.
My reaction is that what went on last Wednesday evening in the GECOM command centre was not about Jagdeo, it was about the deep, priceless value of freedom. It was unrelated to Jagdeo. It was about living in a country where you enjoy the right to vote. The recognition of that right by society then ushers in a process of thinking and instincts that lead to the concretization of freedom.
Here is what I know, and I make a distinction here between what I know and what I believe. On Wednesday, the verification of the statements of poll (SOPs) for Region 4 was stopped. Just stopped and never resumed. GECOM on Thursday declared APNU+AFC the winner of the poll. I have not seen any credible organization, except the winners, that has contradicted that occurrence.
There is no other word to describe what went on there, except the description of descent into election insanity. How can any civilized society accept such an election process and the result that emerged from it? The caricature that accompanied Wednesday’s stoppage of the verification of the SOPs has absolutely nothing to do with Mr. Jagdeo. It was about democracy, which has as one of its fulcrums free and fair elections. Free and fair election is a priceless value. If it brought Jagdeo’s party to power, then in rejecting the election because you did not like the winner, what do you replace it with?
The restaurant owner in the park kept shouting that Guyana must take the sanctions coming, because Jagdeo must never return. The most dangerous mistake in that thinking is who do you replace Jagdeo with? More importantly, who has the right to take away the votes the citizens gave Jagdeo? Which arbiter decides that he/she does not want Jagdeo and therefore citizens’ votes are de-recognized?
If you accept the corrugation and corruption of free and fair elections, then why must the winner accept to be tossed aside? And even if the winner, through some weird psychological contortion does decide to become sheepish, why would anyone think his/her supporters will accept the rejection of their victory?
My politics is an open book. I have been a newspaper columnist for 31 years in which I have penned literally thousands and thousands of columns, and interspersed in those pages are the countless times I have stated how I voted. From 18 years onwards I never voted for the PPP or the PNC. On my parents’ grave that is the truth. I voted for APNU+AFC in 2015. Legally and morally that was not a vote for the PNC.
By the time I was 18, I became suspicious of what my country’s politics was about. After entering university and becoming educated, my mind was now cast in cement. The PPP and the PNC would continue to polarize Guyana, and I embraced the WPA. In 2006, I endorsed the AFC, because I saw them as the rebirth of the third way that the WPA brought in the 1970s.
For me, the AFC died after 2015 through power intoxication, and I became a critic of the government since then. I kept yearning for the return of the third way that the WPA and the AFC brought. It happened in 2020 with the birth of many small parties. I chose Lenox Shuman, because I think Amerindians need to expand their political presence in Guyana.
The point I am making is that politics is about Guyana’s freedom. It is not about specific personalities. Free and fair election is about freedom and democracy. It is not about keeping out a particular individual. I didn’t vote for the PPP, but I believe and know it won the election. Guyana must recognize that.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)
