Dear Editor,
THE Guyana Elections Commission’s (GECOM) progression toward Nominations Day on April 17, 2023, indicates readiness for Local Government Elections (LGEs).

This headway has drawn out further Opposition ‘ire’, and received intensified artificial challenges from orchestrators among their die-hard ranks.

Nevertheless, LGEs present the opportunity for inclusive representation of governance at the community level, which must be taken advantage of regardless of these naysayers.

Our citizens must recognise the highly condemnable and perhaps, treasonable attempts at inducing unmanageable social volatility through deliberately sensitised racial conflict. We have an overwhelming responsibility to reject these contrived, and exaggeratedly created attempts at distracting from our national collective development movement.

The obvious desperation of the likes of Working People’s Alliance’s (WPA) Tacuma Ogunseye, David Hinds, and, Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton et al, at the Buxton public meeting held on March 09, 2023, cannot be made clearer. The irresponsible unqualifying and futile attempt of Norton to defend a call for the army’s support of protests and a ‘weaponised uprising’ based on free speech, must be seen for its every connection with the use of flagrant, clandestine methods to cheat our nation of beneficial democratic ideals.

Notably, the self-proclaimed rights of this grouping as the representative and voice of a particular ethnic group are artificial and do not command any real support.

Based on votes at previous elections, it is doubtful that the WPA will be able to prove a functional membership exceeding 50 persons, indicating their acclaimed supporters have changed their voting alliance or are abstaining.

It is widely known and recognised that the cabal’s orchestrators utilise a tacitly flawed assumption, that all persons of a particular ethnic persuasion will support their misguided principles.

They adopt the unforgiving, foolhardy posture that regardless of the abuse of failures of self-administration that kept the people suppressed, every citizen of a particular orientation should be gullible to calls for violence and protests. This is an absolute affront to education, objectivity, and rationality which has no bearing on our cohesive advancement as a nation.

It has been revealed time and time again that their pursuit of a lack of respect for our laws and proclivity for the ‘any-means-necessary approach’ continues to expose their true nature. Notwithstanding the above, the group continues the use of media platforms to sensationalise one ethnic group against others, which they see as a trump card for imbalance.

We must not view these superfluously, for they highlight the real underpinning shackles that anchor those who follow them, to a continuous self-suppressive, irresponsible opposition thinking and practice.

Editor, all have followed GECOM’s work with a sense of keen scrutiny for obvious reasons. Foremost is the response and performance required for acceptable results from the transparent execution of procedures in these first elections following the March 2020 debacle. Related is the evidential need for numerous corrective remedies, including the replacement of staff who are facing the courts for electoral fraud.

At this point, albeit with much-exercised caution, things seem to be progressing following the published work plan toward the LGEs scheduled for June 12, 2023.

Importantly, the registration offices around the country did a good job in preparation for the Claims and Objections process. Further, the electoral registers were also completed, and now GECOM finally was able to produce the appropriate list of voters for the holding of LGEs.

The institution through its secretariat has provided appropriate guidelines in an LGEs booklet, together with widely circulated published public and Gazette Notices, as well as the exercise of discretion and flexibility that provides maximum timelines for compliance where possible by contesting political respondents to the process. For these initiatives, the institution should be applauded.

The appointment of the returning officers will be done shortly and the nation will move swiftly into LGEs mode. Guyanese are anxiously waiting to vote at these LGEs and expectations are sky-high that in the results, we will have a broader democracy at the local level that is supportive of their individual and collective development in the communities where they reside.

Currently, many prominent groups and village leaders are working assiduously to put together the best list of candidates to contest the LGEs for established Local Authority Areas. Consequently, it is anticipated that the leadership at the local level will be representative of the actual community requirements and advanced by more mature, inclusive, and vibrant councillors.

It is also expected that many of the fading political groups will not contest the LGEs, given their washed-out popularity due to identification with the deceit and involved support of skulduggery at the March 2020 Elections. Hence, it will be the PNC trying to compete in a few traditional areas, while the ‘dead meat’ WPA and the AFC are certainly blowing hot air to stay seemingly as relevant paper organizations.

It is much clearer that the tremendous PPP/C-led development push at all levels across the country is attracting and forging a greater unity platform amongst our citizens. Attendance to support the disruptive unjustified undercurrents from the cabal Opposition front men and women must therefore be heavily rejected forthwith, and resolve to the adoption of an approach of rationality and objectivity.

These LGEs will foster strong leadership at the local levels whose focus must target boosting the standards of living of the Guyanese people in times of reality.

Development is visible, transparency is most encouraging and this column, therefore, calls for a fully inclusive approach at the LGEs.

GECOM must be commended for its preparation and readiness to hold LGEs.

Sincerely,
Neil Kumar