Dear Editor,
Speaking as a Christian, not as a politician which I’m not sure now if I ever truly was, I admit that the history of electoral morality is not an area in which my country can be proud. Neither of the two parties to which I have belonged – the PPP, of which I was a part as a PYO member in my very early teens, nor the PNC, in which I served until I escaped from politics more than three decades ago – can claim the high moral ground. The PNC’s story has been told and retold many times. The PPP’s transgression, on the other hand, seems lost in the convenient dust storms of Guyana’s electoral history, despite the recurrence and recency of that transgression.
How many of those who post about PNC rigging on FB know that in 1961, not only did the courts rule that the PPP was guilty of electoral malfeasance in the Houston constituency, but the people of that constituency began a period in the wilderness, without a representative in the legislature, until the next general election because the PPP government refused to hold the by-election indicated both by law and by decency. In my own constituency, the first time I was qualified to vote was in 1968, since voting at 18 only came into existence under Forbes Burnham. But already in 1961, seven years earlier, classmates of mine were taxied to an ethnically convenient section of the constituency so they could vote for the PPP.
This shared culpability in this aspect of our national life (in which the United Force, at least in its early days, made a unique if more subtle contribution) is why I admire Desmond Hoyte who in 1992, decided that if the PNC could not win fairly, it did not deserve to win. History would prove his judgement to have been sound both morally and politically. A close examination of the evidence would reveal only two reasons why the PPP was able to form a majority government in 1992. The first is that, despite the best efforts of the Electoral Commission, voters in Georgetown and Linden (and presumably in areas where the PPP had greater opportunities to work its magic) turned up at their polling places where their names were on the list outside only to find, on entering the stations, that new lists with their names omitted had mysteriously made their appearance. The second reason is that the WPA, understandably but to that party’s later regret, cast in their lot with the PPP in a region where it held the balance of power.
And how can we forget the high electoral official who was so bereft of a basic knowledge of arithmetic that he had calculated that the PPP had gained a majority government until my friend Vincent Alexander showed the calculation to be false so that, despite all the gymnastics it had performed in more regions than one, it had only gained enough votes to form a minority? And don’t get me started on the proliferation of polling places in the homes of PPP supporters. I will not stand in my place and defend the PNC’s record with regard to elections. Neither will I stand by and allow others to continue falsely suggesting that the PNC has had a monopoly in that regard. “He who comes to Equity must have clean hands.” In this regard, who, pray tell, has clean hands? The PPP? Give me a break!
Yours faithfully,
Frank A Campbell
