Dear Editor

MALCOM Harripaul’s graphical account of PPP/C’s orchestrated rigging operations during the conduct of both the 2011 and 2015 national and regional elections, and of the devious strategies that Bharat Jagdeo have orchestrated to hold his support base, makes very compelling and supportive reading on what is already known about the party’s dirty squad and its deviousness that are daily hatched in the dark halls of the recesses of its party headquarters: re “ PPP/C stands to lose 50,000 votes if list is sanitised”, Guyana Chronicle of July 21, 2019.

Over time, I would have heard of other accounts given by those in the know. I can testify to one conversation that I overhead, quite brazenly given by a young member of the PPP/C who lived in my immediate neighbourhood. So bold was the activist in what he and his fellow comrades did, that he spoke in derogatory terms of the then opposition coalition party. The next morning, when I saw him, I jokingly said to him that he should write a manual for such an exercise. Boldly, he responded – “a thiefman doan lef any evidence!”
Harripaul’s account is not surprising, and is credible, especially with the “collection of national ID cards and wads of money in boxes”.

There have been stories spoken by persons of ID cards being bought for $5000. This, it can be concluded, disables the holder from casting his/her vote on election day; the plan no doubt, hinged on there being no house-to-house registration.

There is no national election commission that will advise national elections on such a tainted and corrupted list that is the current state of the list which the PPP/C and its leader is seeking to have used for the forthcoming national and regional elections. Indeed, it is troubling, very troubling that such a would-be electoral fraud, aided by its equally dishonest phalanx of vested interest groups, is being attempted on a nation, which is aware that there is always house-to-house registration for national and regional elections. How can a national list of registrants, not be in need of sanitising, in a nation that knows only too well about the experiences of national elections and attendant post- controversies?
For those who continue to be deliberate in their falsehoods, while misleading sections of the nation, must be aware that they are in gross contradiction of a cardinal principle for which Cheddi Jagan and his party had ensured – inclusive of even they, who are now attempting to perpetuate an electoral injustice on the nation.

Definitely, it points to a desperation, born out of a realisation that its support base has been gradually eroding, as evidenced in the results of 2011 and 2015, which on the basis of Haripaul’s account about what he witnessed to have taken place at some PPP/C-controlled polling stations, points to a PPP/C no longer certain about its once assured ‘’numbers’’, as they have always boasted.

Of course, Jagdeo’s dangerous strategy for keeping his support base in line is well known. It says as much for his subversive mentality of risking the social peace of this nation, as against his more extreme anarchist mindset, which can only militate against the best interests of even his constituents, and the entire nation in the process. The sad aspect of this entire dangerous political gambit, is that he is supported by a bandwagon, most of whom are aware of the necessity for a clean voters’ list, but who owe their material gains/worth and social status to his personal patronage. As a result, they lack the courage, individually and collectively, to warn their benefactor of his actions and what portents they hold for the future of this country.

Again, one must ask, which nation that respects its credibility, and the need for a peaceful national environment, for socio-economic programmes of development, will want an election that insults its intelligence, and unjust to its hopes and aspirations? Not a Guyana, led by a coalition (APNU+AFC) government that respects the wishes of the people it governs.

Regards
Aditya Panday