Dear Editor,
The President is alarmed about a foreign mission’s “vested” stake in the upcoming elections. This man who just recently lambasted the foundational necessity for a democracy of secret voting within his own party suddenly cares about elections in Guyana and the supposed “vested” interest of a foreign power? Beyond the gobbledygook and the political tomfoolery, this veiled statement is intended to appeal to a familiar crowd; those historical relics who robotically get incensed at the mention of the words ‘foreign power’ in political spheres in Guyana. This is a classic from Cheddi Jagan’s playbook and the gist of the West on Trial: use the foreign power bogeyman card at all times and by any means necessary to sidestep one’s own blunders. This is an indirect reference to a time long gone and long past and best forgotten.
Seriously, when a country has strengthened ties with Iran and Venezuela, hosted a convicted in absentia drug-trafficker President of Suriname more than once, recognized the Palestinian state, allowed mineral exploration by a rogue state looking to build a nuclear bomb, assaulted and made a mockery of democracy, has widespread corruption and is an unchecked transshipment point for drug cartels to ship their products to the lands of foreign powers among others things, do you expect foreign powers to not have a vested interest in the affairs of that nation when it sits in the backyard of one of those same foreign powers? Did the President forget that hundreds of thousands of Guyanese live and thrive in the lands of those foreign powers? So this is not just that foreign powers have a vested stake; it is a case of the multitude of Guyanese abroad also having a vested stake in the elections in Guyana too. When the USSR had a vested stake in the elections in Guyana from 1953 to the early 1990s, some who blasted foreign power interference had no problem with it.
The problem for the President is that many Guyanese do not care about this sordid past. They are too consumed with the present struggles against dictatorship, bullyism and hardship. The truth is that most PPP members care more about the totalitarian-style skulduggery that is being promoted as the method for the PPP to select its presidential candidate than they do about the skulduggery of foreign powers during the 1950s and 1960s. And let me remind those who are ready to jump on this fear of foreign interference bandwagon, that those same foreign powers brought the PPP back into office in 1992. It is to those same foreign powers that Guyanese run every day. It is those same countries where Guyanese can freely express their choice in secret ballots, not in a show of hands voting. Many in this country hope that some foreign power has a vested interest in the election, particularly if that vested interest translates to exit visas to flee from Mr Jagdeo’s paradise.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell
