The PPP has over the last 60 years politically and racially enslaved Indo Guyanese

Dear Editor, Kindly allow me to respond to Mr Vishnu BIsram’s letter, “One can’t bully his or her way into governance when rejected by the voters,” (Kaieteur News 05-20-11). Mr. Bisram on several occasions referred to the PPP Government as a democratically elected one. I want to challenge that notion and show that the regime was not elected in elections that were free and fair, and to show that it is a racially elected government. I also want to expose the inherent hidden racism in Bisram’s letter. Before I start to do so I wish to point out the obvious sly deviousness of Mr. Bisram’s letter. In writing about Tacuma Ogunsesye and David Hinds, he acknowledged their contributions to the struggles in the 1970’s and 80’s but then he wrote, “the struggle does not give them the right to advocate lawlessness and violence against an elected government.” Here Bisram hides under the cloak of impartiality and fairness in order to state a blatant lie about Ogunseye and Hinds. His intention is to reinforce the PPP’s demonization of Ogunseye and Hinds. I listened to Ogunseye’s speech on Demerara Waves and he did not call for lawlessness and violence. I now move onto the main purpose of my letter. Mr. Bisram, like Mr. Ravi Dev, refers to the PPP regime as being democratically elected at free and fair elections. I would like to critically examine this position by asking if the PPP is a democratic institution, and if Indo Guyanese were really free from fear. One only has to look at the manner in which the PPP presidential candidate was imposed by President Jagdeo on the PPP membership and Indo Guyanese to see how undemocratic the PPP is. PPP members were not allowed to elect their candidate. They never heard from any of the presidential hopefuls of the PPP. Instead a President Jagdeo controlled 15-member Executive Committee “chose” Mr. Donald Ramotar for the 2,000 odd members of the PPP. The PPP membership had no say in the matter. Indo Guyanese had no input on the matter but they are expected to just accept such a dictatorial imposition. This absence of democracy in the PPP is by itself an aberration of free and fair election at the national level. Another anomaly is that the PPP exercises control over Indo Guyanese by exploiting racial fears. A perfect example was the manner in which President Jagdeo and Mr. Ramotar kicked off their 2011 elections campaign by hurling false accusations against the PNC’s candidate that was designed to demonize that candidate and create suspicion and fear in Indo Guyanese. Rather than campaign on its “glorious past 19 years in power,” the PPP constantly resorts to disparaging the character of the David Granger. However, the PPP does not only rely on racial fear mongering to get Indo Guyanese to vote enbloc for the party. It resorts to intimidation on elections day. This intimidation takes place in two stages. Firstly, PPP activists armed with voters lists go from house to house urging people to go and vote. They make a show of marking off names on the voters list. Secondly, outside the place of poll more PPP activists move around with the voters list and again mark off names. Gullible Indo Guyanese are shown these lists and are told, “see we know which ballot you will vote on so we will know how you vote.” I learned of this voter intimidation when I was the ROAR Election Agent in 2001. I made the above observations in the Canals Polder and Vreed En Hoop Districts. I also observed that many Polling Officers were school teachers and some were known PPP members/supporters. It is well known that opposition polling agents do not stay around in PPP strongholds after the close of poll to count the votes. This may explain why ROAR only “got” two votes in Ravi Dev’s home villages of De Willem and Uitvlugt in 2001, and why AFC only “got” one vote in Khemraj Ramjattan’s home village of Number 47 Village  in 2006. A point to note is that the PPP only employs racial fear mongering and intimidation against Indo Guyanese. It does not do so with the other ethnic groups. That Indo Guyanese voted enbloc for the PPP means that the PPP was not democratically elected but rather it was racially elected. The PPP over the last 60 years has politically and racially enslaved Indo Guyanese. It is this racial enslavement that caused Bisram to write, “One can’t bully his or her way into governance when rejected by the voters.” This is true in a monolithic society. It might be even true in a multi-racial society where political parties campaign on issues such as Trinidad and Tobago. But In Guyana where the ruling PPP habitually resorts to racism to garner Indo Guyanese votes it means then that Bisram’s “rejected by the voters” translates into Afro Guyanese being rejected by Indo Guyanese. What is even worse is that Bisram wants Ogunseye and Hinds to accept the rejection and stay quiet. This is a recipe for social unrest, and disaster for Guyana. Fortunately for Guyana we have David Granger who is the opposite of the PPP leaders. Granger is a spiritually developed soul and he has mastered his ego. He also has an educated mind. After he retired from the GDF he spent the last 20 years pursuing academic excellence and today he is a respected intellectual and history scholar. It is his sense of history that has caused him to embrace shared governance should he be elected as President of Guyana. Malcolm Harripaul