Ms. Beverley Alert of the “new” AFC certainly did not say anything new last Friday when she once more alerted us to the nonsense about GECOM and the electoral system. We will come to that, but first let’s look at what Ms. Alert alerted us to in 2020.
Writing in May 2020, two months into the conspiratorial attempts to change the legal results of the general elections, Ms. Alert noted: “For 50 years, Independent Guyana has had successive Governments that fail to respect our laws. That changed in 2015 with the coming into office of the APNU+AFC. For those of us loyal to the AFC and supportive of the Coalition, we see it as our duty to never again allow these people (the PPP) to rule this land.”

I replied to that delusional output from Alert. Please see my column of May 8, 2020 with the headline, Election 2020: Ms. Alert of the AFC wrote this.” I am not going to reproduce any part of my interpretation of what Alert asserted back then from my column. But in my response on May, 2020, I forgot to include a pyrotechnical assault on one aspect of Alert’s adumbration.

Let me quote once more for emphasis from what Alert mouthed off in May of 2020: “For 50 years, Independent Guyana has had successive Governments that fail to respect our laws. That changed in 2015 with the coming into office of the APNU+AFC.” It just slipped me to deal with that ignorant opinion about which government broke the laws of Guyana in the past.
Ms. Alert is a barefaced woman. She denied what the entire world saw in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Ms. Alert’s party, the Alliance For Change along with the PNC failed with unparalleled shamelessness to respect the laws on Guyana and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) had to intervene to save Guyana. APNU+AFC failed to respect the constitution of holding an election three months after a no-confidence vote.
Prior to that, two AFC leaders in the APNU+AFC government – Khemraj Ramjattan and Raphael Trotman – publicly said that they informed President Granger that there was no violation of the constitution in unilaterally appointing Justice Patterson as GECOM chairman. The CCJ ruled that Granger did indeed violate the constitution.

Ms. Alert’s Government in 2019 continued to ignore the constitution when President Granger refused to adhere to the Carter-Price formula in the constitution and offered Justice Claudette Singh to the Opposition Leader as his choice for GECOM chair. Constitutionally, it was the other way around.
It is the Opposition Leader who offers his choices, not the president. This was after President Granger rejected three lists submitted by the Opposition Leader. Finally, it was from the AFC that the stratagem came that a majority of 65 is not 33 but 34. Ms. Alert and her “new” AFC party should be the last people to talk about past government disrespecting the laws.

I ended my May 8, 2020 column on Alert with these words – “Please Ms. Alert- don’t write anymore nonsense!” But the lady is at it again. Last Friday, at the AFC press conference, Ms. Alert again falsely alerted us. Let’s quote her: “The next election could once again lead to public unrest.” This is highly deceiving statement that should cause people to dismiss the “new” AFC.

There was no unrest only one instance of protest when the police shot a youth who was part of a group of protestors that were demanding the results of the March 2020 election because the world knew the PPP had won because Ms. Alert’s party, the AFC, and the PNC had the statements of poll. At the time, Mr. Jerry Gouveia said GECOM should bear some responsibility for his death, which would not have occurred if the legal results were promptly announced.

This was the second time in contemporary Guyanese history, PPP supporters were killed demonstrating against rigged election by the PNC. In 1973, Jagan Ramessar and Bholanauth Parmanand were gunned down by soldiers after they protested military seizure of the ballots boxes at Number 64 village. Alert falsely alerts us to the need to overhaul the electoral system? Which system is she talking about? The system worked in 2011 and the PPP became a minority government. The system worked in 2014 and Ms. Alert’s party came to power. The system worked perfectly in 2020, but the PNC and Alert’s party attempted to rig the election.
The AFC lied when it told the world that three Russians came to fix the election and were deported. It was the only clownish moment in five months of tragedies. But then again, Ms Alert’s party is a clownish affair. That party said Guyana has half parliamentarians because 33 is not a majority of 65.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.