Dear Editor,
It is not if but when this caretaker APNU+AFC coalition regime will be removed from power. History has taught us that regimes refusing to acknowledge the basic elements of fair governance generally end up in the family of rogue nations. Unfortunately, Guyana is moving towards that direction. However, occupying a position among rogue nations is not a sanctuary or safety net any longer. The world has changed. The question is, do you have the patience and wherewithal to wait, watch, support and apply pressure for the restoration of democracy in Guyana? The reality is that this regime does not want to give up power and so if a recount of the votes was allowed in accordance with the law, there is little indication that the regime would accept defeat. They will find another excuse and go back to the courts. The PPP/C opposition does not have the means to remove the government from power other than to use the law and garner international support. Ravi Dev’s ethnic security dilemma argument comes to mind.
This regime has three options none of which is in its favour: concede defeat, allow a recount, or stay in power illegitimately. The regime seems to have settled on the latter option which will bring the nation down to its knees while the power grabbers will benefit in their insular delusional world. To survive illegally, expect two forms of dictatorship. The “Cabinet” will crib, cabin and cage its members, essentially forcing them to toe the line while the opposition and its supporters will be excluded. The regime’s loyalists would not have much more to offer other than blind support.
The regime’s determination to hold to power is not based exclusively on the lust for power. It is based on fear. Out of power now means a ticket to the oppositional side of the political aisle in 2025 and 2030. What happened in 2015 was a political miracle in which Indians crossed over from the PPP and voted for the coalition. That voting pattern is now gone, possibly for the next thirty years. The unfolding events since March 2 suggest that the coalition cannot be trusted, we know so not only by evidence but those who had voted for APNU/AFC in 2015 have been speaking out, in ways, like forgiveness. The regime knows that the AFC supporters have returned to the PPP and sometime soon the AFC will declare that the coalition is really a PNC party. The AFC party is now gone into the political wilderness. How effective it would be in an illegally governed regime will further challenge its residual values. The most concrete fear is that the regime knows that if they give up power the PPP will investigate each one of them, a prospect that does not bode or bat well for those who are fighting desperately to hold to power. It has become a do or die situation. Electoral fraud and futile attempts to deny it as well as the evidence of corruption through inquiries and investigations proven in court will plunge the APNU/AFC coalition in the dustbin of Guyana’s politics for a long time to come. I am not surprised that some are calling for shared governance and national unity. Let the votes count first and foremost.
Yours faithfully,
Lomarsh Roopnarine
