PNC and PPP members deserve the mistreatment they suffer at hand of party leadership
DEAR EDITOR,
It is time to tell it like it is. There are rights and wrongs. We must be prepared to state the truth, wherever the chips may fall.
The PPP’s congress in 2013 at Port Mourant was a fixed affair. Delegates were prevented from voting by a frivolous last-minute change of the rules and there were more ballots than voters. PPP members, many of whom fought strenuously for a restoration of democracy in 1992, said and did nothing when this travesty occurred. Fast forward to 2014 and the PNC congress was a fixed affair with delegates prevented from voting. The majority of PNC members said and did nothing against this abomination. The excluded group was quick to recommit to the PNC and to the same leadership that disenfranchised its members.
This is nothing but the tragedy of immorality rooted deep within these individuals. That immorality is agitated to a large degree by the steady diet of racial politics they have immersed themselves in for a long time. For some, it is rooted in a basic sickness of racism or racialism.
It is fitting that in a single year we have seen the same disease repeat itself within the two race parties. In this day and age of democracy where countries are freeing themselves, the two main race parties of this country, and most importantly their membership, are still buried deep in the ethno-antagonisms that most shamefully define this country.
The subservience that emerged from the PPP and PNC congresses to the assault on democracy is dangerous to the future of democracy – the little we are clinging to – in this country. That the members of this party would wilt and accept the authoritarianism does not bode well for Guyana’s future.
When the cabal dominating both of these race parties gains power, they will rule like dictators, and they will have weak-willed foot soldiers to always fold and execute their sordid agenda. That is guaranteed. Then there is the hypocrisy involved. PNC members were critical of the PPP’s manipulated congress election. The PNC used that as a rallying tool to its membership and supporters. Now, PPP leaders will try to use this PNC disaster as a rallying point. In fact, the PPP will use it to blackmail PPP members and supporters, reminding them to remain silent and to not air their grievances. It is nothing but another tactic of Pavlovian psychological domination centred in old-fashioned hypocrisy.
When the PPP and PNC members cannot escape the noose of race politics and it forces them to obey the vagabonds, rogues and despots among them, we have a serious problem. It means that democracy cannot thrive, for these individuals will always sacrifice democracy, transparency and accountability for the sake of the party’s aim of securing power on a racial platform.
This act of succumbing to the PNC leadership endangers democracy for the entire nation. It robs the nation of an opportunity to become better. The act of capitulation from those in both the PPP and PNC congresses represents a huge stain on this country. The PPP and PNC cannot be trusted with power. If they will manipulate internal party elections, they will certainly try with national elections now that the stakes are higher and majority support is no longer guaranteed.
These PPP and PNC members and supporters do not care about country. Immorality has so deeply staked them that they do not even care about self, family and community. They have witnessed the perils and travails of dictatorship, elected and unelected, and how it degrades Guyana.
For 50 years, they have seen the unequivocal signs of how unchecked autocracy and the absence of a democratic culture have flattened Guyana. Yet, they allow it to flourish and remain silent in their own elections.
The psychological trap that strangles the race voters of this country is destructive. They are caught in Pavlovian automatism. It would be fine if the country was inhabited by the ethnic tribes that predominantly back the PNC and PPP. But this is not the case.
A third of this country is filled with other races, mostly Amerindians and Mixed Races. They have no political representation of their own. When the members of the race parties allow and encourage despotism within their parties, they are allowing the leaders of their party to transfer that destructive totalitarianism to the nation at large, including their own supporters and to the Amerindians and Mixed Races.
Those who vote race and support race parties and autocracy within those parties deserve the dictatorial government they get. They deserve the abuse they receive when they still support these parties despite their abject mistreatment at the hands of that same party leadership.
The PNC leadership understands the psyche of the membership and how to manipulate them very well. The Jagdeoites who hijacked the PPP fathom this very well too with PPP supporters. As long as race voting prevails in Guyana, those race voters will deserve the economic misery, social ills, rising criminality, deep class rifts, failed country, broken state and political domination they suffer. They created it.
M. Maxwell
