Dear Editor,
I SAT at a home in Success on the East Coast of Demerara as the results poured in for the June 12, 2023, local government election on Monday.
Despite both sides claiming victory, that night, I, like, thousands of Guyanese waited on the results from the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM). The results showed the Guyanese voting resoundingly for the People’s Progressive Civic (PPP/C) and rejection of the Peoples National Congress Reform-led A Partnership for National Unity (PNC/R-APNU).

I think that the ruling PPP/C must be overjoyed after making major breakthroughs in the PNC/R-APNU stronghold communities and towns such as Bartica, Lethem, New Amsterdam and Plaisance to Industry areas.
I think the biggest and most surprising area where the PPP/C made inroads was in the Georgetown communities. The PPP had double times the votes they had in 2015 and 2018 thereby achieving eleven seats in Georgetown, seven out of 10 Towns, and 66 other NDC and LAAs.

I think this is good political work with structured planning. Now is the time to celebrate every victory made by the PPP/C campaign and one-Guyana mantra. I believe that most if not all of Guyana is on board for progress, development, and growth to continue changing the face of Guyana for the better.
Sadly, the opposition leader Aubrey Norton appears defeated even as he seeks to spread his usual alternative facts. I was not only surprised but in shock because I could not believe it when he said that his party was victorious in the face of the very clear and undisputed GECOM results that were in the public domain by the next day of the local government elections.

Norton, much to my annoyance and disbelief, held out that the results were allegedly a rejection of the PPP/C and an endorsement of the APNU. Something is wrong with the mind of any person that tries to twist the reality and figures of these polls. Something must be wrong with the APNU supporters and those who believe APNU’s alternative facts and half-truths that they spewed at press conferences and on social media.
I have compiled a dossier of lies and deceptive or alternative facts that Norton, other opposition MPs, and the political opposition commentators were using to get votes or make sure their supporters stayed with them.

No less than 127 lies were told to date by the APNU for the period of local government elections. I have found the APNU and their political allies, particularly Cathy Hughes, Christopher Jones, former president David Granger, Ubraj Narine and Derron Adams told blatant lies 200 times to the public and further have no integrity or moral standing with me and many of the voters.
Using and knowing the truth, the APNU used the whisper and race campaign to hold back the PPP/C from totally winning their strongholds in many of the places in Bartica, Linden, Kwakwani, New Amsterdam, Georgetown and other communities. We are big, but not stupid! We might even be slow but we know Mathematics and could count! We know when Norton is bluffing his way like a Cheshire Cat. This is not Alice in Wonderland. This is Guyana and it is real! Norton should know that I am not buying the garbage and nonsense he is peddling, choosing to hide from the shameful facts by saying ‘a team’ is analysing the statistics.

Again, he is being misleading by hiding the effect of thrashing behind alternative facts like Donald Trump did with the figures of his second inauguration, and the fact that he lost the elections to President Joe Biden.
I would respect him if he just accepted a defeat at the polls following the results which was declared by GECOM but he continuously denies losing and is insulting the public’s intelligence.

Conclusively, APNU lost the overall election when they decided they do not have money to compete with the PPP in all LAAs, NDC areas, Towns and Municipalities. They lost again to the PPP/C on nominations day as they allowed the ‘Red Wave’ to take over and had the non-support of MPs and a few big wigs. They lost time and time over in the informal campaign debate that was taking place in the lead-up to the polls. Now, they have suffered a humiliating, painful and massive defeat at the polls.

And, that’s Norton’s legacy apart from the peddling of alternative facts, mistruths, and race-baiting and discrimination. Norton is the only opposition leader who has had infighting and political fires happen so often from the time he ran in the PNC to right now. Is this the end of the PNC’s legacy and its demise as a once-trusted political unit?

I hope not but in American literature, a poem called “The Masque of Pandora” (1875), by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has a character of Prometheus who speaks the phrase: Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.
A string of madness, a false sense of consciousness and political blindness is running through APNU and Norton’s minds. I believe one must know when to go. The people have spoken and voted for the PPP/C. Now, resign and retire quietly. Withdraw and save face!
Yours Truly,
Michael Younge