Dear Editor,
Here I am writing on the eve of the first anniversary of the successful No-Confidence Motion (NCM) against the caretaker APNU+AFC regime as if I am sending a Christmas card to letter writers of SN for expressing their views so that the doctrine of democracy prevails in Guyana. We will never know the impact of the views of these letter writers but their myriad views have certainly caught the attention of the regime evidenced by its maladroit heavy-handed stance towards SN. The unfolding events since the NCM are not situations where the same evidence is interpreted differently and different approaches have been taken. The regime has survived the NCM, a constitutional mandate, through breach and bully. We have to find a better acronym than 33 to define this regime.
One has to possess a braying brain to believe that this regime has been following the expected principles of a caretaker regime. That person is in denial, and perhaps intuitively, violating the basic standard of truth. Parliament has not been dissolved. Is this a trivial matter? Oh Baap re, achcha! I understand that this regime is seriously hamstrung by ineptitude and inefficiency but that should not prevent it from being moral and ethical. What seems amusing in all this rut is how David Granger was able to get Bharrat Jagdeo to have a GECOM Chairperson of his choice. One can pull off such a clean and clever feat only if one is military-minded. It is a classic case of delaying tactics that broke through Jagdeo’s resistance. Sadly, Jagdeo is yet to realize what happened. I plan to call my colleague and Calypsonian Hollis Liverpool, stage name, Chalkdust, asking him to put a spin on how Granger got Jagdeo to choose GECOM Chair for him.
All eyes and ears are now on GECOM and the results following the March 2, general elections. This regime has this election in the bag and hear me out for two reasons. The regime has fought the NCM publicly, (we do not know what happened privately), and in doing so, was able to bring almost all important institutions under its fold, and in some cases, sway, to survive. Why would GECOM be excluded from this urge to hold to power lustily? In this process, the regime has realised, even serendipitously, that GECOM is its trump card to stay in power. GECOM is not independent. Additionally, notwithstanding the PNC past of electoral rigging when in power, and that the Indian aspect of AFC is willing to forget the PNC past, rightly or wrongly so, for the sake of holding on to power, do not expect another Charrandass in the post-election atmosphere. All the PNC needs to do is call upon the Indian aspect of the AFC to convince the PPP Indians voters that the election was never rigged, providing enough evidence for the regime to stay in power. Guyanese still think in ethnic ways. Not much the opposition can do; actually, not much they can do from now until March 2, 2020, to ensure a free and fair election. “Things” have been already set up in every nodal point of the electoral process for this regime, even to contest the results, to stay in power. I hope I am wrong.
Yours faithfully,
Lomarsh Roopnarine