THE political opposition is on a fishing expedition. They are in a desperate search for ‘red herrings’ which is a term used to describe a situation in which there is a deliberate, misleading narrative intended to divert from the truth.

The truth is that the PNC, now morphed into the APNU, has never on its own won a national election. It first came to office in 1964 only after it entered into a coalition with the United Force.
Prior to the 1964 election, all national elections since the introduction of universal adult suffrage in the early 1950s were won by the PPP.

The PPP won elections in 1953, 1957, 1961 and again in 1964 by winning a plurality of the votes, but the imposition of proportional representation in 1964 allowed for the formation of coalition government, which in fact happened with the coming together of the PNC and the United Force in 1964.

Space will not permit a detailed exposition of the political intrigues and machinations employed by foreign vested interests in collaboration with other reactionary groups to remove the PPP from office.

Suffice it to say that the removal of the PPP from office in 1964 by way of a ‘fiddled constitutional arrangement’ set the stage for the subsequent destruction of the democratic fabric of the country and the institutionalisation of PNC dictatorial rule.

The country languished under the yoke of authoritarian rule which only ended on October 5, 1992 when democracy was finally restored to the country.
The PNC should stop misleading the Guyanese people by peddling a false narrative that it was ‘cheated’ out of power in the March 2020 General and Regional elections. The fact is that it lost the elections in a free, transparent and verifiable poll.

Whatever malfeasance there was in the electoral process, and there were many, were all the result of a frantic attempt by the APNU+AFC coalition to rig the elections. What they failed to factor in was the fact that democracy in Guyana today is much more institutionalised than in past years when the PNC was able to get away with rigged elections for almost three decades prior to the October 5, 1992 elections.

Now in anticipation of another defeat in the upcoming elections, the APNU and the AFC are insisting on the use of biometrics, purportedly to guard against any attempt at electoral fraud on voting day.

This is yet another smokescreen to mislead its supporters that the PPP is in ‘cahoots’ with the Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to prevent the use of biometrics in the upcoming elections in order to prevent electoral fraud.

Nothing could be further from the truth. As pointed out by PPP General Secretary, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, the PPP is not opposed to biometrics, but its application is unconstitutional and could delay the holding of elections constitutionally due this year.

In any event, the use of biometrics is already in place by way of fingerprints, photographs and other forms of checks and balances to prevent electoral fraud. Additionally, a number of amendments were made to the Representation of the People Act (ROPA) that allows for strict penalties, including jail terms, for electoral tampering.

The problem has always been a reluctance by the PNC and its political sidekicks to accept the results of elections in Guyana, however free, fair, transparent and democratic. This is the crux of the matter and any attempt by the political opposition to show otherwise is nothing but a fig leaf to cover their anticipated rejection at the polls.