Dear Editor,
His Excellency, Guyana’s Brigadier – President – did achieve, enjoy and demonstrate a sterling career. Scholarly military mind which produced the army’s first ideological “orientation” publications under Commander-in-Chief LFSB; a prize-winning academic with history as his forte; a publisher and writer in Guyana’s literary/journalistic landscape, his family name enhanced that clan’s reputation of service to country.
Then His Excellency revealed his reverence for Forbes Burnham. He is an avowed Burnhamist with all the brilliance and negativity “Burnhamism” accommodated. For as I have constantly opined, as a staunch Burnham-admirer up to 1984-1992, Burnham, before His Excellency, was also a scholarly, legal achiever, regional visionary then, perhaps a willing victim of autocratic power which collapsed all his programmes to prise Guyana out of delayed development.
So in terms of raw practical politics, His Excellency’s mentor Forbes, resorted to “electoral engineering” – rigging of votes – to sustain his vice-like grip on perpetual power. (Forbes once declared that “No party in power should ever lose elections”.) And many of us served Forbes, for our own varied reasons.
How ironic – or predictably coincidental that the worst of Burnhamism – electoral theft – should now be His Excellency’s downfall. For whether he retains the presidency or not – and all the local/friendly “machinery” seems set – or rigged – to ensure presidential continuity – His Excellency’s political pedigree, even moral standing will forever be touched by taint.
Right now one opposition “friend” is doubting the security of ballot boxes, the status of the SOPs, the ballots and other relevant “recount documents” – the very efficacy of any recount. This friends is actually suggesting brand new elections! A possibility? I doubt that but…
For all the husbandly embraces; the kneeling down in church; the pretense at not interfering with an autonomous elections body and independent judiciary; even the daily onslaught of “analyses” and “moralistic” support from his tribal young Turks and Party Veterans on Facebook, His Excellency’s one-time (hidden) character is now forever contaminated.
It now saddens me that the international community – whose assistance we’ll always need – could be excused for equating our His Excellency to Bolivia’s Evo Morales in terms of electoral malpractice.
Yes, his thousands of loyalists will enjoy “their President”; his distribution of oil revenues might just “fool” the needy, but half the country will keep a respectful distance from him. After voting for him hopefully in 2015, count me now among the latter lot.
With my respect for office still somewhat intact, I’ll watch the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), now assisted with enthusiastic newcomers, battle for political fair play. As I appreciate too what complicit rigging did to a Burnhamist-Leader’s reputation.
(By the way, on a much “lighter (?)” note: even as His Excellency journeys to Castro’s Cuba for medical care, will his current actions prevent his colleague Cabinet Ministers from visiting the US for theirs?
Yours faithfully,
Allan Arthur Fenty
