Conversation Tree

HAD RODNEY LIVED, GUYANA WOULD NOT HAVE FACED THE CURRENT DILEMMA

Guyana, and indeed the world, has moved on in significant ways since June 13, 1980, when Walter Rodney was assassinated. From an authoritarian dystopia, where opposition political activists, particularly of the WPA, were invited to make their wills, where political activists were imprisoned, harassed or killed, where the economy was bankrupt, where the press was not free, where the leading western countries saw the regime as a bulwark against communism, and where the communist and progressive world saw it as a leader in the struggle against western imperialism, Guyana emerged as a democratically governed country in 1992, with the help of the same western countries, which today, in 2020, joined by a hitherto silent Caricom, are now in a defining effort to sustain that democracy.

ON THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ASSASINATION OF WALTER RODNEY, A POLITICAL SOLUTION AND FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS STILL ELUDE US

The recount winds down amidst the 40th Anniversary of the assassination of Walter Rodney, one of Guyana’s most prominent and courageous fighters for democracy and free and fair elections. The party, of which he was a leader, the WPA, now in alliance with APNU, together with the PPP, proposed separate policies in the late 1970s for shared governance. The WPA’s proposal was called “Government of National Unity and Reconstruction,” the PPP’s, a “National Patriotic Front Government.” There were formal discussions between the two parties, chaired by the neutral Ashton Chase, at the CCWU’s headquarters, seeking mutual support for each other’s proposals. There was no immediate agreement but the WPA’s subsequent adjustment to include the PNC in its Government of National Unity and Reconstruction, created an alignment of the two positions on two important issues for a political solution, namely: 1. Free and fair elections; and 2. Inclusion of the PNC in a unity government.

THE CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON

Cynicism in relation to elections in Guyana did not begin with the debate as to whether the majority of 65 is 33 or 34 in relation to the no confidence motion passed against the APNU+AFC Government by the National Assembly on December 21, 2018. It began since mid-2017 when President Granger rejected three lists of names submitted by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo for President Granger to choose one as Chair of GECOM, in accordance with the Constitution. The President’s unilateral appointment of 84-year old retired Justice James Patterson as Chair, created the impression among many that efforts would be made to manipulate the electoral process.

‘HE WHO ASSERTS MUST PROVE’

While the political atmosphere is still heavily laden with gloom, it was somewhat lifted by President Granger statement that the Government will accept ‘any declaration’ made by GECOM pursuant to the recount. This was followed by a statement by the Chair of GECOM that ‘he who asserts must prove.’ President Granger’s statement contrast sharply with those by Government/APNU+AFC officials doubting GECOM legal capacity to issue a declaration on the recount. A suggestion by a member that GECOM that must investigate the allegations that dead and migrated persons have voted in the elections cannot be taken seriously. But the statements have only partially mitigated the concerns.

SINGING FROM THE SAME HYMN BOOK – TO WHAT END?

As the week ended, a clear strategy by APNU+AFC appears to be emerging. Trash the elections! From Joe Harmon’s extensive statement early in the week, to interviews by Lennox Craig and David Patterson at midweek, then a press conference by Amna Ally, Cathy Hughes and Aubrey Norton, all singing from the same hymn book – the elections were rigged by the PPP. The question is: To what end?