Dear Editor,
I hear of the many massive frauds that monopolized our elections, as detected in the concluded recount process. These are the only truths that matters, with the ones from the first counting process after March 2nd not having any bearing at all. The latest daily truths from the recount only are the ones given a hearing, allowed any foothold in consideration.
I hear exclusively partisan truths, which sweep over all who disagree. Even the learned get carried away and lose their association with personal principles and residual integrity harboured. This season’s elections have done this to many, with more committed to being this one way only. Politics has cursed us with making up electoral truths as we go along to suit ourselves in changing stories, where unpromising circumstances are presently.
I hear recount revelations of massive fraud with the coalition victimized criminally. I ask myself what became of the coalition agents at the polling stations and during the first counting. Where were they when voter fraud occurred repeatedly without ID cards, or via repeated violations? Nothing was objected to then. Where were they during the GECOM tabulation? How blind were they when such massive frauds stood before their eyes? Where were they when issues of valid ballot papers and valid votes should have arisen? Where were they during the watching and policing of boxes? Where were they during the securing and placing of ballot papers in boxes, for forwarding to GECOM? Unlike the smaller parties, the coalition and opposition had (or should have had) people in every place.
I move from polling stations to GECOM. I have more questions. Where were they-the coalition’s agents, highly trusted loyalists-during the processes of GECOM’s storing, opening, counting, tabulating, overall processing, documenting, and final reporting of the first figures? In view of what is encompassed, and the alleged numbers distorted, this cannot involve a few agents, but many of them, who were expected to be extremely diligent in competitor’s strongholds more than anywhere else, since the worst was expected. Since it is more than a few coalition agents who allegedly failed, the position stuffed down the craw is that many of their own people colluded. That is, they sold out.
Because this is a chief feature of Guyanese politics, I rule out nothing, except what I can rationalize by my standards. I cannot fall prey to every contention because it is said to be so by my people, which is another suffocating aspect of local politics: blind acceptance. It might be of falsified truths, imagined truths, pretended truths, the truths of ignorance, the truths of criminal objectives, and truths that together crumble before any light.
Whatever stood before is washed away by the latest development, which falls apart when standing on its own. As I continue to probe for answers that make sense (to me), I recall the declarations of victory in the days immediately following Mon-day, March 2nd. There were, too, the first utterings of deceptions and of the usual cheatings by the other side. My position then would have been that, since the evidence of trickeries were there early, why continue to be a part of a seriously flawed, questionable process? Why continue when one’s own people had betrayed for silver, as is the word? And, last, why not separate from the whole electoral masquerade, rather than agreeing to a recount?
The coalition’s leadership mind can be of the finest steel when circumstances demand. I tender the 15 months that elapsed from the no-confidence motion’s passage to polling day, March 2nd. From this alone, I find mysterious the party’s consenting to participate further in such a massively fixed enterprise. Further, how could something that is so massively compromised have any shred of accuracy or honesty or reliability remaining that urges continuing. The coalition went willingly into the hell it made, and now pretends at being surrounded by a halo from heaven.
For the umpteenth time, the PPP is not constructed on saints, but some of the worst elements to be found anywhere. But despite the allegations hurled, it stands better.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
