AGAIN, a Kaieteur News columnist has found time to advocate a most anti-national line, advising a boycott of the much anticipated 2011 national elections, as a protest mainly against the PPP/C administration alleged association with a noted undesirable. This is in addition to comments which he has attributed to a cabinet member; and calls made by two leading actors in the international system for an international commission of enquiry into allegations of extra-judicial killings in Guyana in the early to mid years of this current decade.

But are the reasons given by the columnist, justified?

Calling for a boycott of national elections in any state and for whatever given reason(s) is indeed both undemocratic and counterproductive. This is undemocratic since it threatens to remove from electors the right to exercise their rights in respect of issues that affect their well-being; and counterproductive, since constituents are bereft of any parliamentary representation. The ballot box is the proper constitutional medium via which the body politic can effectively make their voices heard. Boycotting polls by political parties is a tactic seldom resorted to in modern day domestic politics, since it is accepted that the ballot box is the proper constitutional medium via which the electors can effectively make their voices heard.

Despite the AFC’s leader proposing a similar action, I am prepared to wager that such a call will go unheeded by the mainstream opposition PNCR, for instance. The latter, will remember a similar advice that they had issued prior to the 2006 poll, causing many of their constituents not to register for electoral purposes, and who in the end were unprepared, because of a sudden volte-face by their party.

As said above, such a call by this columnist is anti-national.