Dear Editor,
I wish to offer a few comments on the letter, ‘In Guyana we must be careful not to be consumed by policies that lead to inequalities,’ by long standing politician Hamilton Green (Stabroek News, March 4, 2021) in which he states “…we have the propaganda gurus in high gear as we observe the anniversary of the 2020 General Elections… Of course, we have the lengthy statements about Elections 2020 and except for a brief sentence, the source of the problem is ignored, which is going into an election with an imperfect list and the country buckling under a dictum to suspend house to house registration”. It is interesting that Green’s letter appears two days after Stabroek News (March 2, 2021) lengthy article, The March 2nd General Elections and the five-month campaign to steal the result – a look back, that gives a detailed, factual account of the events over the five months following the March 2020 elections during which then caretaker President David Granger refused to concede defeat. The timing of this letter begs the question – Are the journalists at Stabroek News included in Green’s definition of ‘propaganda gurus’?
In relation to his reference to House to House (H2H) registration, Green knows or should know that this was not a requirement if elections were held within the constitutionally required period after the No Confidence Vote (NCV). The list was valid until April 30, 2019, well within the timeline from the NCV of December 22, 2018. As was reported in the press, GECOM’s in-house lawyer had given legal advice on this but the advice was ignored by the then unconstitutionally appointed Chairman of GECOM. H2H registration was simply a ploy to extend the life of Granger’s term in office. Page One Comment: Democracy at Stake (Stabroek News, March 2, 2021) is pertinent: “Throughout his tenure in office, President Granger has presented himself as beyond reproach while flagrantly breaching the constitution of the Republic of Guyana in a selfish bid to remain in power to empower him and his constituency. His vulgar appointment of Justice James Patterson as GECOM Chairman and the rejection of the December 21, 2018 motion of no confidence are prime examples of his unconstitutional behaviour.”
Regarding the point about an imperfect list, the fact is that APNU+AFC participated in the Claims and Objections process in compiling the list. Also, on Election Day, thousands of the coalition scrutineers across the country did not encounter illegal voters as they verified the legitimacy of each potential voter before a person was allowed to vote. In fact, all parties and observers reported a smooth process on Election Day, and APNU+AFC was all set to swear in Granger. However, the story changed after the results showed the coalition losing. Green’s complaint about imperfect list is laughable in light of the fact that he was a minister, then a vice president and finally prime minister during the PNC’s twenty-eight years in Government from 1964 to 1992 when the Opposition parties had no involvement in putting together the list for every election during that period and the list was always padded.
Let us look specifically at the 1985 elections when Green was the prime minister. In his 2006 internet publication, From Autocracy to Democracy – Aspects of Post-Independence Guyanese History (1966-1992), Guyana’s historian and diplomat, the late Dr. Odeen Ishmael, 2002 recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy Award, notes “the elections of December 1985 were even more heavily rigged than before”. Chapter 27, under the caption The Rigging of the 1985 elections, provides details on all aspects of the rigging. However, few excerpts specifically relating to the voters’ list are informative: “Jeffrey Thomas, the Minister of Home Affairs had refused to allow opposition scrutineers to work alongside the official enumerators in the preparation of the national register. He also ordered that the birth date of persons, especially between the ages of 18 to 25, must not be placed on the preliminary list of voters. The inclusion of birth dates was intended to safeguard against the padding of the voters lists with underage persons”. (It should be noted that the Minister of Home Affairs was the defacto supervisor of the Chief Elections Officer at that time.) “Neither the voters’ lists for the security forces nor the list of proxies were ever supplied to opposition parties. This made it impossible for opposition monitors to determine whether multiple voting by members of the security forces occurred…The padding was concentrated this time not so much in the preliminary voters’ list but in the supplementary lists, which amounted to approximately 44,000 names…Supplementary lists totaling 17,000 for nine of the ten regions were given to the PPP on December 8, one day before the election. But the supplementary list for Region 4 (including Georgetown, the capital), totaling about 27,000, was not supplied. Thus, opposition parties had no opportunity to check these names for errors.”
Further, Green writes “Our youngsters must know and be wary of those who use the word ‘democracy’ with such ease. Democracy happens to be one of those chameleon words that changes its meaning by and to different people”. I do not know what Green’s definition of democracy is but I know that he opposed US President Jimmy Carter’s proposal for free and fair elections in 1992, and he was against foreign observers for the 2020 elections. Also, in 1985 when he was Prime Minister, foreign observers were prevented from entering the country for the election in that year. In 2020, had it not been for the presence of foreign observers, especially former Prime Ministers, Owen Arthur of Barbados who headed the Commonwealth team and Bruce Golding of Jamaica who headed the OAS team, and the diplomats from the US, Britain, Canada and the European Union, it is unlikely that the winner of the 2020 elections would have gained power. Having benefited from rigged elections for twenty-eight years that exacerbated the racial division in the country and supported policies that made Guyana the second poorest country in the hemisphere by 1992, Green is now offering advice to current leaders “We must settle down and not talk of one Guyana while doing things that create division, not unlike the old imperial strategy of ‘divide and rule,’ but let us behave in a manner where there is the same justice for all of us”. I agree with that lofty view but coming from Green, it smacks of hypocrisy. He seems to have forgotten that imperial rule ended in 1966 and his government was in charge continuously until 1992. It is ironic that a beneficiary of the ‘divide and rule’ strategy, is now cautioning against it. Shakespeare was so right when he wrote “If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces”.
Sincerely,
Harry Hergash
