History is everything in an election

By Rakesh Rampertab

“…[T]he experiences of our history…have refined and revived our party’s ideology” – David Granger, “Declaration of Vreed-en-Hoop,” 2012, Official PNC Revivalist Party Policy.

In an election, history is everything. The past is without an equal as a gauge by which voters measure candidates and parties. Voters do not vote as if in a vacuum. Politicians, therefore, should allow voters to vote as they see fit, with free access to Guyana’s political history.

To ask voters (or voters from a certain section of the electorate), as the AFC has done, to ignore the history of one political party but not the others, is to discriminate. Said another way, it is double standards. If PPP/C history is relevant, so too is PNC history. Or WPA, etc.

There should not be one law for jaguars and another for jackasses, so to speak. However, this is already happening already. Currently, the AFC/APNU coalition has advertisements created to promote coalition politics in Guyana, and in at least one there is a reference to Dr Cheddi Jagan as far back as 1964.

Yet, coalition figures want voters to ignore PNC history. This outreach is meant to specifically get votes from PPP/C supporters, no one else. It is done, therefore, with some kind of racial or ethnic bent to ensure the coalition gets at least 51 per cent of votes cast.

Further, to strip voters of the benefit of memory is to make them handicapped, and to interfere with their right to freely enjoy political speech. Voting is, after all, protected political speech and for politicians contesting the elections to suggest what voters should forget and what they should remember, is an interference with a voter’s fundamental right.

Voters, with the aid of history, can better assess what a candidate is saying. Consider, for example, the following illustration. During an interview, Mr. David Granger rightfully noted that the PPP failed to have an inquiry into the death of a PPP Minister (Sash Sawh).

Now, with the aid of PNC history, voters would also know that the PNC failed to have an inquiry into the death of a PNC Minister (Vincent Teekah). Suddenly, both parties appear to be equally guilty of failing to have inquiries done. Of course, a voter without the benefit of history would easily be misled.

While it is unreasonable to hold current PNC leadership for what happened 30 years ago, this cannot be said for its Presidential Candidate David Granger. Further, as a matter of history, the PNC itself is yet to attempt, even in small measures, to shake off its history.

They do not wish to examine and expunge, but celebrate PNC history under Burnham.

Additionally, the more recent PNC history is also a controversial, because of some kind of violent events. Elections in 1997 and 2001, if not also other elections, are remembered for ant-PPP/C disturbances used by the PNC to weaken the will of the electorate. The five-year term of the 1997 government was reduced to three. And to the PNC, that is quite fine.

In 2001, the PNC forced at least 15 demands on the Jagdeo regime, arguing from what Desmond Hoyte called a “position of strength.” The only strength Hoyte had was the anti-PPP/C violence on the streets, because the electorate had already spoken on elections day.

Also, voters will recall that criminals aided by others, used Buxton, a PNC constituency, as a base to foster a campaign of violence, the aim of which was to bring down the Jagdeo Administration. The PNC never intervened until significant damaged had been done.

So, it is not as easy to ignore PNC history, as Nagamootoo has suggested, as having a photo album and brushing pass all the old photos, to a new page. Further, whoever came up with this analogy needs to be reminded that the purpose of a photo album is to trap and contain history, not to dismiss or set it aside.

People who have scars from history need not pretend to be victims. But with poor record keeping by the PPP/C and civil society, deaths, old age, migration, and the passage of time, it is easy to see why the AFC is asking people to ignore, to forget, to set aside PNC history today.

Worse, already some (example, David Granger and the issue of rigged elections) are saying certain events never happened, or they need evidence to say it did.

But the AFC should be reminded that hundreds of thousands of persons who suffered in extraordinary terms directly under PNC politics, without any forum or recourse or court that afforded them a moment in time to bear witness against PNC history, should not be asked to shake off PNC history when the PNC itself has, on the record, refused to shake off its past.