Conversation Tree

BIOMETRICS IS NOT PERMITTED THE CONSTITUTION OR BY ANY OTHER LAW

The three members of the Elections Commission representing the Opposition, recently issued a joint letter calling for the implementation of biometrics by way of electronic fingerprint technology, to identify voters at elections. This is a long-standing demand by the Opposition that picked up speed after the 2020 elections when the Opposition, in a deflective maneouvre, incredulously accused the PPP of rigging. As an aside, we should understand that if and when fingerprint technology is implemented, reasons will then be found to continue to allege that the PPP is rigging the elections. Demands will then emerge for retina identification technology. These demands for additional measures, including applicable AI technology, will continue indefinitely into the future, as long as the PPP wins elections. With fading memories, it is difficult to believe that it was the PNC governments from 1968 to 1985 that applied the most unusual, open, measures to rig elections. Its attempt to do so in 2020, creating great trauma across Guyana, suggests that if it ever achieves office again, the appalling crudities witnessed in the Ashmin’s building and in Kingston in 2020 will be once again applied.

TRUMP’S DARK VISION PREVAILS

Donald Trump’s resounding victory has shattered the Democratic Party and the coalitions that sustained it since Franklyn Delano Rooseveldt and the New Deal. A Republican Party that has been having great difficulty in recent decades in sustaining an electoral majority captured enough of the white working class in 2016 to give it electoral victory. It has now expanded that support to include enough African-American men, Latinos and youth to give Trump an overwhelming victory.Trump is no longer an “outlier,” an “aberration” or a “fluke.” He is a transformative figure engaged in reshaping a new coalition for the Republican Party on a dark vision of an economically crumbling United States, beset by hordes of criminals illegally entering through an “open” border and a world exploiting the US.

WHAT DO ELECTIONS IN AMERICA MEAN FOR GUYANA?

In some circles in Guyana there might be sympathy for Republican Candidate Donald Trump in the US elections. It was the American Government under President Trump that intervened in the attempt by the APNU+AFC Government to rig the 2020 elections, resulting in the derailment of that nefarious plot. It was also the Republican Administration under President George H.W. Bush in 1990 that took a position for free and fair elections that ended a quarter century of fraudulent elections in 1992.

ETHICS IN ADMINISTRATION

In 1961 the PPP was elected as the government for the second time, 1957 being the first. My father, Ram Karran, was appointed a Minister of the Government in both 1957 and 1961. On this latter occasion I distinctly recall that in December, 1961, a large number of Christmas gifts were delivered to our home. I vaguely remember the decision that the gifts were not opened. They were stored in our verandah. Some time later, but before Christmas, the gifts were returned unopened. Again vaguely, I recall discussion to the effect that government ministers were not allowed to receive gifts.

HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY TO STANLEY GREAVES

This article under the caption of “November 22 and 23,” now slightly amended, was published on 23 November 2015 aboutStanley Greaves, but included references to Roy Brummel and Wordsworth McAndrew, cultural and artistic giants in their own right. Since we will, sadly, not be having the opportunity of a 90^th Birthday Stanley Greaves exhibition, as we did the landmark 80^th Birthday exhibition, I ask Guyana to join with me in paying tribute to and honouring Stanley Greaves, a unique Guyanese monument.