Dear Editor,
The twists and turns of Guyana’s elections of March 2nd have been dizzying with furious passions and a series of unending intrigues. The totality of what has been experienced since that first Monday in March beggar belief. Now along comes the coalition with its own hard steely allegation of a “‘clear pattern’ of contamination of the elections. With its back to the wall, and seemingly nowhere left to go, the coalition has come out counterpunching.
As I assess the situation, I sense that the coalition is swinging for the skies. It has been pummeled brutally but rolled with the punches. The narratives have been one-sided almost across the media board, which I find most revealing and unfortunate, speaking from the perspectives of a contributor and private observer only. The local political-commercial complex has been near unanimous in its condemnation of what it has labeled as concerted attempts at cheating the electorate; though expected, I am still taken aback at the swarming stridencies that coursed through their representations and advocacies. The international community has weighed in with its own considerable heft on the will of the people must not be thwarted, but faithfully observed. While the domestics could be understood for their zeal and emotional flares, the same is hard to summon in defense of the “overstepping” of the foreign contingent, which it has asserted that it did not. As an American and Guyanese, I respectfully beg to differ, for I found it to be all too perfectly aligned with suspicious local interests, and lacking in the customary balance and distance, as well as the studied neutrality so vital in these country to country relations.
My point in all of this is that the messages have been altogether one-dimensional and one-tracked, and not necessarily completely unjustified, as the concoctions and provocations of the damned (to wherever) Returning Officer for Region 4 testified to attempts at the scurrilous. On the other hand, any isolated voices that dared to stand in defence of the coalition were either run over or effective run out of town with immensely powerful and, when the care was taken, nuanced marginalization. The operative word is silenced, to which I can partially attest.
The coalition reeled and took all of that on the chin, but it did not fall, though it did give some ground in the credibility and integrity departments. Now it has come forward to attach the narrative of a new chapter to the surreal environment that is this still unfinished business of elections 2020. As I see things, it is going to be a long chapter and one that is largely undesired by the forces arrayed against it and which had controlled the pace and pitch of the entire proceedings. I say that the coalition is deserving of a full and fair hearing. After all, this is part and parcel of probing for the truths that constitute the architecture of adversarial proceedings; and what we have is nothing less that the fiercest, most unrelenting of such undertakings.
With that said, the coalition has a duty to furnish all of the pieces of any evidence that it has gathered and accumulated, and that is under its control. It must be forthcoming in every detail and at the earliest. Now that it has rung the bell, it must hasten forward to respond to its own call with the proofs of its positions. I believe that it possesses this right and must be afforded the space to present its case along with all of the supporting facts.
To be clear, I have disagreed with some actions that unfolded on the coalition side in the elections. But I have said all along and repeatedly, Elections 2020 is not about who cheated, but of who cheated more; even that was found offensive and quickly smothered in endeavours at introduction of a contrary narrative. Such has been the state of our so-called public discourses. It has been that the discourse of one side only. The sign on the entrance to hell should serve as a warning to all interested Guyanese: abandon hope, all ye who enter here. I am in Guyana and it has been nothing else, if not that most scorching of places.
I close by saying this: many a protesting man has been condemned to the fate of Death Row, only to be exonerated when it was too late. The objectives of the coalition’s foes in that first week of March are now clearer: count, conclude, and close forever the books on what really took place. The coalition did object, which was met with a torrent of denunciations. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and I believe that countermoves have been readied. But whatever it is, it is inconsequential. The coalition must deliver what it has; it must be given a hearing.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
