Dear Editor,
It is infuriating that there are these clumsy dodges in naming an election date; that the ruling PPP has such seemingly insurmountable difficulties to step forward and cast the die. What is the problem? More importantly, what tricks are in the works and finding safe harbour within the cover of time?
For starters, the eligible electoral race numbers are the numbers; they are not going to change in a calendar quarter, or two. Thus, even if the fence-sitters and prior absentee voters cast ballots, the result does not promise to be any more favourable to the incumbent group. Perhaps, the extra time is needed to recover some of the votes heard to be lost in that traditional stronghold in Berbice, compliments of the departed insider. Also, it could be to seal deals with, and purchase more votes from, the indigenous communities, as has been the norm. Since that Puerto Rican affair and a detained plane full of cash, new funding sources would have to be tapped to grease stubborn locals, but that is never a problem in this country, where there is plenty of funny money and funny money people to fill the breach. While talking about money, it might be good to spend a few moments more on this.
I believe that the extra time is needed to cover tracks through the destruction of every morsel of evidence from all the bad and dirty business executed in the last two decades. As an aside, but still staying with money, I read that there are calls for visa revocations of ranking people. I say take it a step further: call for a freezing of the foreign holdings of those same people. Those holdings are not as secret as they think. Some have been privy to the details.
On another note, I think that the time is tautened to near breaking point to test the discipline and will of the opposition; it has been a failed provocation thus far, as the opposition has determinedly refused to nibble at the bait and provide trumped-up footage for either anxious or gullible television viewers. In the interim, the pendulum continues its grim inexorable arc, above the head of a nation, which can be likened to a tottering beast burdened by the uneven heaviness of a pregnant time. Tensions smolder and grow in the midst of this surreal time, as dictated and stoked by the PPP. Along with this comes the nurturing of deeper, more enduring antagonisms.
For the PPP, time might be the only ally it has today; it is a rather finite one at that. It could very well be an implacable enemy soon enough the more that it is mismanaged and used to play games with which to taunt and disrespect the Guyanese people.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
