Dear Editor,
A JOURNEY downtown on March 3, 2020, the day after national and regional elections were held, revealed the closure of many commercial buildings, while others were still open, conducting business in a general environment that had no feeling or semblance of post-election tension. In fact, business was good, as persons continued to purchase their domestic support necessities, except that there was no evidence of panic-buying. And this could have been borne out by a visit to one of the city’s leading shopping centres, which is traditionally filled with shoppers.
Add to that the fact that the nation’s various categories of workers could have been seen toing and froing from their daily endeavours, with students also completing the same routine with their daily scholastic endeavours.
Editor, that I state this observation is because, either the closure of business places was as a result of self-induced fear on the part of its owners, or part of a grand design, contrived by the Opposition in cahoots with the PSC to commence the fomentation of an atmosphere of national tension that will lead to civil unrest.
It was not difficult to have arrived at such a conclusion, given the fact that many objections/complaints that were emanating from the Opposition Leader, pre-poll, which were undoubtedly the setting of the ground for accusations against GECOM, once the 2020 poll results had gone against the PPP/C. The indomitable Tacuma Ogunseye had been foremost in both explaining and expounding this scenario in many of his published letters. There were others of similar vintage.
Subsequent events have proven him ALL CORRECT, for what is being witnessed is a similar scenario to that of the aftermath of the NCM, when all of the political mercenaries and kindred bedfellows joined in an insurgency, which the Opposition had commenced since the entering into office of the ‘Coalition’ in May 2015 against a duly elected government. This event was what can be described as the culmination of ‘Plan A’, eventually defeated by the CCJ’s decisions, and by the local High Court by a collective of opposition attorneys who wanted the judiciary to overturn the decision of the nation’s highest court. Call such action judicial treason the desperate acts of power lusters, the same as is now further unfolding before our eyes.
The criminal invasion of the GECOM command centre, twice within hours, by high-ranking political hooligans backed up by armed gunmen, including a well-known former Death Squad member and PPP/C bodyguard, signaled the commencement of the implementation of ‘Plan B’, cunningly contrived. This was done with the sole intention of soliciting the sympathy of the international community by inveigling them into the internal affairs at a level which is not supposed to happen. In fact, that had always been the devious strategy of an opposition party, after planning and executing its mischief. And it never ceased at strategising situations for such intervention to come about.
Can someone, especially from among the International Observers from any of the western democracies currently here and the ABCE diplomatic community explain whether such attack on such a seminal constitutional body would have been carried out in any of their jurisdictions without being roundly condemned? Is it the norm of democracy for an opposition party to criminally intrude such a precinct, intimidating staff carrying out an important constitutional process so vital to the manifestation of democracy? Further, is it the norm for such a constitutional exercise to be disrupted by an opposition party whose sole intention is to hijack a free, fair and credible casting of poll by what is clearly fraudulent means? Why the stony silence in condemning a flagrant attack on an important democratic process? If the silence continues, then it is quite understandable for it to be interpreted as the new norm of democracy in western democracies. It is a fair conclusion.
Editor, clearly such a position does not augur well for the impartiality, much less credibility of international observer missions.
Regards,
Earl Hamilton
Source: https://issuu.com/guyanachroniclee-paper/docs/guyana_chronicle_epaper_03_10_2020