All is fair in love and war, and Guyanese politics, too

Dear Editor,

Short of full-scale confrontation, this nation and its inhabitants have gone through more than any should be asked to bear. I had hoped that the end is near now that the clock has less than one full circle to go by the time of reading. As it ticks, many are on pinpricks. I think that the relief and resolution hoped for will prove to be elusive. These are my thoughts.

The CEO of GECOM has until 13:00hrs on Thursday by written order of the chairwoman to do his part. That unwitting choice of time is a bad omen, even for an unsuperstitious character like me. More importantly, and though there was no way around it, my experience has been that give some people some space and time, no matter how minimal, and they come up with the wickedly astonishing.

Last Saturday stands as a case in point of the mental mysteries and the macabre electoral machinations that make a living here, and which would have made one Niccolò applaud in admiration. It is why I am bracing for the unexpected and unsurpassed witching hour of on or before 13:00hrs on Thursday. If the shocking does not happen, then I would be left numb in disbelief; this is what elections in this country do to us. I am expecting more than some mirage of someone riding a bicycle in seeming midair; I expect to learn of a man walking on water, where there is no sign of either man or water.

As I arose on Wednesday and received my first confirmation, which is disturbing for a man long baptized. Say what? Say it is not so. Not at this time, this peculiar but convenient time. But there it was in black and white computer lights: 12 new confirmed COVID-19 cases. I sense the first ace in the hand kept close to the vest, and in reserve for a contingency just like this, now being revealed, when other men are reaching for the rich pot with claims of victory. Not so fast, cowboy! My instincts are telling me that there is more from where that came, and which cannot be matched.

Now, I am gearing up for the next phase in this tense standoff, with a flush of new confirmed cases before any document changes hands between the CEO and chair of GECOM. And suddenly, in the blink of an eye, this country would have gone from elections cataclysms to a viral emergency. I detect a national one in the making. It is intriguing that, with less than 24 hours to the deadline given by the chair, no senior political figure is anywhere near what is a staggering COVID-19 development, one that calls for an authoritative and soothing press presence. I call it the element of surprise maintained and cloaked nicely and in the most nuanced political manner. That is, until it is time for the hammer to drop in the nuclear option held in abeyance; all of this is a little too clever and too coincidental for my liking.

Except that it may not be so, particularly, when the president did hint in a restricted press conference held on Sunday last, at being left no choice, but to take emergency measures. What could be better than this, as a perfect cover, as a fine example of responsible leadership, and as the fallback option to remain in office?

I have no issue with going out on a limb on this, since the political leader that I favour has sawed off the tree on which I once rested. For those who could read and understand, on more than one occasion over the past 4-6 weeks at least, I had expressed misgivings in two publications with national reach over the fact of political people being too intimately involved in the chain of communication for laboratory results of COVID-19 cases. I would have objected if they were only part of the directory of personnel, since they are not medical and had no business in anything besides the related statistics resulting from the population tested for positives or negatives. My alarms rang louder when I understood that the lab results were to be channeled exclusively to the political player(s) than the waiting and hampered medical ones.

I had hoped to be wrong on this; of course, all is fair in love and war, and Guyanese politics, too. For it now looks as though I may not have been that far off the mark. Meanwhile, the clock ticks with unrelenting inevitability in the monotony of the minutes counting down the rounds. Last Saturday, there was high theater, between now and Thursday, I suspect what could assume the features of electoral hijinks.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall