VOTERS have to be circumspect in this election season, lest they allow themselves to be swept away by the tsunami of hype, misconceptions, and myths. The two main contenders of this tsunami are A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC), seeking to oust the incumbent People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C). They remain imprisoned by their mantra, that the PPP/C has failed Guyana; that nothing good has happened in this dear land under the PPP/C administration.
For starters, the tsunami APNU and AFC cauldrons in this campaign enjoy elements of democratic principles and practices as the freedom of expression and freedom of movement, which the PPP/C restored after years of the PNC dictatorship. And yet these ‘tsunami’ parties constantly bemoan that there is no democracy in this country. Perhaps, come next week, I may write a note on why Guyanese voters should not return to the bondage of the 1968-92 era of repression.
Indeed, there is another of the tsunami messengers – David Hinds, who possibly wearies this nation and himself with the same old repetition of tall tales of marginalisation of particular folk. Most recently, he admonished the PPP/C for failing the University of Guyana (UG). He is wrong on both counts. I will address this UG misconception in another letter.
At the time of penning this note, the Guyanese nation has not as yet had the privilege of perusing the campaign platforms of APNU. The APNU campaign platform  document is still on the missing list days before the national and regional elections are held in Guyana. I would still say that the document is on the missing list, notwithstanding a feeble launching of the document in New Amsterdam last Friday evening, without full disclosure of its contents; and even then, mention of the document found prominence only at the end of the meeting.
APNU’s campaign platforms are still not available for public scrutiny. To present its plans so late in the campaign is inappropriate, as this is one of the tsunami cauldrons that constantly vilify the PPP/C’s record, yet APNU is unable – even at this late stage – to comprehensively tell what it has in store for the nation, and to enable the public to scrutinise its formal plans for Guyana.
At the UG presidential debate, APNU’s presidential candidate Mr. David Granger issued promise after promise, as if those promises on their own would win an election. Look, a party, even if not comprehensively, would certainly provide some insights into its campaign platforms funding base, to add integrity to the many promises. Otherwise, plans become empty promises when the party that forms the government fails to keep its promises. The result then would be a rupture of democratic responsiveness.
And ‘democratic responsiveness’ happens when the democratic process influences the government to formulate and implement policies that citizens crave; and the government already would know what citizens want by virtue of its election campaign engagement. Democratic responsiveness is akin to a chain with causal links, starting from citizens’ preferences, to citizens’ voting behaviour, with election results that determine the government, and then on to assessing whether the government delivered on citizens’ preferences (Powell, Jr., 2004).
You see, APNU, through its presidential candidate Mr. David Granger, continues to overwhelm this nation with promises, without addressing the funding base for such promises and without presenting its campaign platforms for public scrutiny.
In a previous note to the media, I indicated that “Granger promised to provide each UG lecturer with a laptop; Granger promised to make more funds available to teachers and lecturers; Granger promised to create jobs commensurate with people’s qualifications; Granger promised to give UG better laboratories; Granger will bring scientists to UG; Granger will pay better salaries to stem the rise in migration; there were other promises, too. Nevertheless, promises have to be predicated upon appropriate funding; otherwise, they become empty shells just like APNU, a shell coalition”. At the debate, Granger did not even word one sentence on funding for all his promises.
And particularly during an election season, it is gross naïveté for any political leader to believe that showering a nation with mere promises is a sweetener to attract voters into his/her camp. By virtue of the fact that we live in a post-information society, people’s  access and use of digital media can now expose this naïveté. It is also disingenuous for the party that forms the government not to keep its promises vis-à-vis campaign platforms; the result would be a failed democratic responsiveness.
And then we come to Brigadier Granger’s role within the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), where he was commander from 1979 through 1992, and National Security Adviser to former President Desmond Hoyte. Given these security credentials, it really is not surprising that the Brigadier would present himself as a security czar. And, therefore, as presidential candidate, aspects of his security role would be the subject of public scrutiny.
The people may need to know Granger’s contribution to the Declaration of Sophia; his participation in imposing party paramountcy on the GDF, in order to guarantee the GDF provision of political security to the PNC regime; and to order GDF personnel to take the oath of allegiance to the PNC and to former President Forbes Burnham. This loyalty was a mere first ceremonial step in securing allegiance to the PNC.
The people would want to know Granger’s role in the politicisation and subordination of the GDF to the PNC, and thus the de-professionalisation of the military; officers who could not have fitted this bill experienced dismissals.
The people would want to know Granger’s role in starving the GDF of funds at alarming levels. And the people would want to know what he knows about the 1980 assassination of Dr. Walter Rodney, which happened under his watch as GDF commander (on this subject matter, refer to a comprehensive piece I wrote, titled “Granger Encircled With Unanswered Questions” in ‘themisirpost.wordpress.com’).
The GDF had a particular role at election times, that is, to destabilize the electoral process at the command of the PNC ruling elites (Griffith, 1991). Under Granger’s watch in the 1980 elections, international observers concluded that, “The military presence in some areas was intimidating. The [ballot] boxes were collected by military personnel who prevented accredited officials of the opposition, sometimes by force or the threat of force, from accompanying or following the boxes … Military personnel refused accredited representatives of opposition parties access to the count at gun point in some cases” (Latin American Bureau, 1984: 83).
At the 1980 elections, too, GDF personnel provided audiences for PNC’s mass rallies, where Burnham and his senior ruling elites were billed as speakers. As Griffith suggested, this was one of the PNC’s methods of political and doctrinal socialisation of the military to establish a clear stratagem of militarised politics. All this happened under Granger’s watch as head of the GDF. Presidential candidate David Granger, therefore, has an obligation to provide answers to these concerns.