Dear Editor,
DURING this election cycle, APNU+AFC has, without doubt, been playing by the rules. The rule book, foreign to many, has been a permanent fixture in our armoury. We live and breathe the political and constitutional commandments. Law-abiding we are because being law-abiding is intertwined in the double helix of our DNA. On the contrary, the other electoral actors have buried, not only the rule book, but also the statutory documents from the ballot boxes. Oaths of identities, certificates of employment and log books were all burnt to unidentifiable ashes in their crematorium. And those were not their only indiscretions. For even as the ballots were being counted, they invaded GECOM armed to the teeth, driving fear in all and sundry, from Chairperson to charwoman. And their supporters, genotypically and phenotypically anarchist, could not resist the opportunity to cause mayhem. Their place of terror was the East Coast of Demerara. The victims were innocent schoolchildren, peace-keeping policemen and women and innocent passersby who dared to be peacefully heading home. One dead and many hospitalised was the result. Peaceful protesters they were labelled by their political masters. Election observers turned a blind eye, totally consumed with the Region Four tabulation.
Ballots over lives.

And the anarchist’s list went on as even our trusted institutions have become infected with the electoral non-compliance virus which turned out to be much more contagious than COVID-19. The Chairperson of GECOM led the way as she instructed the CEO to advise her what she wished to be advised on. In effect, his advice would be her advice. And in so doing, she demonstrated scant regard for the constitution, reducing the CEO to a secretary who simply types what the boss instructed.

Regards
Dr. Mark Devonish