Submitted by Rickford Burke
Good Riddance! The PPP’s demise has inspired a renaissance of national pride and cemented a determination to unite, rebuild and develop Guyana
Part I
On May 11, 2015, the Guyanese electorate decisively voted the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) out of government and granted the mandate to govern Guyana to the A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition. The immutable right of the franchise was exercised to condemn the 23 year-old dinosaur and brutal ethnocracy into the dustbin of history.
The dinosaurs were so astounded at their defeat and shattered façade of invincibility, that they confused themselves into pandemonium. Initially, on May 12, PPP presidential candidate Donald Ramotar and their former President, Bharrat Jagdeo, mendaciously bluffed of victory, but shrank into wind-balls when challenged to produce such evidence.
On May 14, they tipped their hand. With countenances of dejection, they torpedoed claims of irregularity and posited that vote tabulations were derived from “fraudulent” Statements of Poll (SOPs). Their shenanigans bemused the nation, as their claims of victory a day prior posed an unprecedented paradox.
Their agent provocateur masqueraded on television in an obvious state of lunacy. The intent was to incite mobocracy. However, their only success was giving credence to the ancient proverb: “Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.”
Their jugglery constrained Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Mr. Keith Lowenfield to immediately disclose that a process of vigilant scrutiny had detected about 300 fraudulent SOPs, out of 2,299. The CEO said the bogus documents were quickly quarantined and secured for investigation because of a criminal attempt to corrupt the elections process. He unequivocally assured that the fake SOPs were not used to tabulate votes.
On May 15, the dinosaurs exposed their hand completely. They acknowledged possession of copies of the alleged “fake” SOPs. The Elections Commission did not disseminate these documents, yet the PPP had them to use as props to bolster their bogus claim of irregularity. Naturally, they unwittingly evoked a sea of suspicion.
It is irrefutable that documents in the fraudulent SOPs in the PPP’s possession were the same fraudulent documents which someone clandestinely snuck into the computer room at the Elections Commission. The PPP was in government and in control of the elections machinery. The dinosaurs got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, trying to “rig” and corrupt the elections. The Commission had caught on to their practice, in previous elections, of using corrupt staffers to criminally insert bogus SOPs into the IT process to fraudulently increase their votes on paper.
They had no clue that the Commission’s 2015 SOPs had undisclosed identification features similar to money. Hence, when their hands got trapped in the cookie jar, they panicked and shouted for “thief.” There must be an investigation into this attempt to steal in elections and the culprits must be brought to justice.
PPP leaders are so pugnacious and power drunk that they contemptuously rejected the will of the people. They self-righteously arrogated to themselves the monarchical right to “rule,” and covetously clawed to occupy every inch of political space. For twenty-three years they imposed an ethnocracy and acted like they owned the country. They subjugated entire minority villages and towns, blocked opposition personalities from employment at home and abroad, and curtailed the freedoms of the media.
They misused tax information to criminally blackmail political opponents and journalists. Public corruption became their way of life. They raided the treasury. Some ministers of government had multiple state vehicles for themselves and family. Over twenty state-owned vehicles were allegedly transferred to private individuals. Five billion dollars were spent without the approval of Parliament. The one billion “Clean Up Guyana Fund” allegedly turned out to be a campaign slush fund that is now being investigated for fraud.
Within hours of the initiation of the investigation an arsonist attempted to burn down the building housing the records. This is the modus operandi of the dinosaurs who arrived in the halls of power dingy with indigence, but allegedly left like progenies of FIFA – as millionaires and billionaires.
It is therefore no wonder that they strenuously resisted leaving office and had to be evicted from State occupancy. They employed every delaying tactic invented in human history to stop the declaration of the results, and arrogantly intimated that their approval was a prerequisite for a declaration. They demanded five separate recounts, all of which lacked legality. Ultimately they failed to establish a single material irregularity. The true and accurate was declared on May 16 and the new President, Brigadier David Granger was sworn in on May 17.
Overseas and local observers; the American, British and Canadian governments; the Chairman of the Elections Commission as well as Commissioner Vincent Alexander, have all sanctioned the accuracy of the results and dismissed the PPP’s claims as whimsical nonsense.
The dinosaurs are so fatally geriatric in their thinking; intellectually stagnant and bankrupt, morally washed-out that they could not even invent new ideas to manifest their perfidy. They relied on their old trickery of fraudulent SOPs. When that failed and they were defeated, they resorted to their 1950s mantra of ‘rigged’ elections. They fail to comprehend how foolish they look and how alone they were. No one allowed them to strain credulity with their bogus claims.
PPP leaders are shell-shocked from the nation’s salvo of good riddance and the boomerang of the door of government slamming shut in their faces. Guyanese want nothing more to do with their corruption and treachery. There is a pervasive disinterest in anything emanating Freedom House. The prevailing view is if they feel they have evidence of election irregularity, they must file an elections petition and litigate the issue in the Supreme Court, or, get lost.
These dinosaurs have disgraced and driven our nation into the gutter. They plundered our money and squandered our resources. They converted our standards into garbage and placed our laws into the cesspool. They ran one of the most corrupt governments in the world. Former President Bharrat Jagdeo increased his own salary to become one of ten most highly paid Heads of State in the world.
The dinosaurs ran aspects of the people’s government like criminal enterprises. Criminals and death squads were indistinguishable from legitimate security forces. They were complicit with political murders and extra-judicial killings, and overtly facilitated gangs that engaged in murder for hire. Over 400 extra-judicial killings, murders and political assassinations remain unresolved.
They made our country their playground of racial divisiveness and ethnic strife and divided Guyana based on race for their political expediency. We as a people must dismantle all forces of division. Never again must we allow an entity that derives its political power from racial divisions and bigotry to govern Guyana.
But alas, change has come to Guyana and the people exhaled free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last! The day finally came when the Guyanese electorate said good riddance to a cabal of political thugs who looted our country.
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