Dear Editor,
The country is now witnessing from the political appendix of the PNC, the Alliance for Change; their attempt to suggest alternative facts about the conduct of the 2020 elections, to smokescreen their utter fear and trepidation in heading into another free, fair and transparent election. The AFC is on its deathbed as a political entity, with every last breath of viability. The AFC still stands in apparent support of the PNC’s undemocratic posture, in claiming that a flawed list was used in 2020 and that they will not contest the upcoming Local Government Elections on account of what they see as another flawed voters’ list. A definitive position cunningly yet undeclared by Norton.
These are the very folks who were misled by David Granger and Joseph Harmon for five long years under a so-called Coalition government. The very folks who supported Granger’s illegal appointment of Justice Patterson as GECOM’s Chairman. The same folks, who aided and abetted the five-month long election heist following the March 2020 elections, conjuring up mysterious Russians from the depths of their empty imagination for another place at a would-be APNU/AFC illegitimate governance table.
But as faith would have it, the very safeguards which remained in the electoral machinery that they did not think to dismantle as part of the plan for their attempted heist, and which are still there; such safeguards as the multi-layered counting and verification at the place of polls in the presence of party scrutineers and election observers; posting of Statements of Polls on the external walls of polling stations immediately following the counting; and ultimately the final transparent process for declarations under the vigilance of PPP/C and other parties and credible observers, and under the watchful ‘live’ streaming eyes of the world. Not anything to do with the voters’ list.
The constitutional path for Local Government Elections preparation was followed to the letter by GECOM. A Claims and Objections period, intended to sanitize the Voters’ List was opened to all parties for a prescribed period. The AFC and PNC refused to participate in the exercise while still claiming that the list is bloated. In fact, leader of the PNC Aubrey Norton was bold enough to declare that theirs was a tactical political move. We are not sure what it is for the AFC. Well, as it turns out, other parties and many national stakeholders participated in the Claims and Objections exercise and issues raised therefrom were addressed by GECOM, before the list for LGE was declared settled. So, let’s get to the real crux of the matter bothering Ramjattan and Cathy Hughes.
Seeing the PNC being unable to muster more than a few dozen supporters beyond those bussed in for community meetings in their strongholds, and Norton walking about in Linden, Mocha Arcadia, and elsewhere virtually unnoticed on several occasions recently, is really driving the shivers up the backbones of the AFC. They can see the dreaded writing of irrelevance and political oblivion on their walls. Having failed miserably at the last Local Government Elections, and seeing the reality of how Guyanese of all classes, geographic locations, and political persuasions are reacting to President Ali’s Transformational Agenda with a ‘One Guyana’ approach at the heart of people’s empowerment and national development, is a frightening thing for them to contemplate.
The AFC lost its purpose over seven years ago when its leadership betrayed supporters who came along in the first place, to have a chance of being part of a viable Third Force movement in Guyana. Their grasping at straws while going down, will not stop them from drowning. Their hallowed righteousness and shameless hypocrisy will ring out to the masses, unanswered. And their inevitable demise will simply whistle them away into the distance, as though they never were.
Sincerely,
Kwame Mc Coy
Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister
