An open letter to Khemraj and Moses

Dear Gentlemen,

It is with great sadness that I choose to write to you this letter regarding the delay of the publishing the election results. I along with many others have fought too hard for democracy and for fair and free elections in Guyana for me to remain silent.

As the nation waited with bated breath for the votes to be counted, the time has come for me to indicate to both of you that you have betrayed your democratic principles and have traded them for political power which in my opinion is very dishonest.

My admiration for both of you took a nosedive in 2019 in the milieu of the No Confidence Motion when, after acquiescing to the fall of the Coalition, your government performed a back somersault to challenge the motion in court.
From savvy politics to peculiar math, the nation witnessed a concocted and unheard of formula consisting of 32½ men rounded to a full man = 33; to a majority is 33+1 =34 needed to pass the motion in a 65-seat capacity National Assembly.

One year later, after spending millions of Guyanese taxpayers’ money on legal fees, the Caribbean Court of Justice ruled that 33 and not 34 votes were needed to pass the motion. The deceit was glaring. Your actions as part of the government have embarrassed the nation abroad, and made Guyana a laughing stock among other CARICOM states.

In 2011, many of us became very frustrated with the PPP government which had been in office for 20 years. Therefore, we felt compelled to align with the AFC, touted by both of you as a new political movement, the so-called third force. At the time, I was told that the AFC would relegate racial voting to the sidelines, expose corruption, fight illegal drug lords, prevent highhandedness and abuse of power, and uplift Guyana to prominence from Third World to First World status.
With this in mind, I joined the AFC at the behest of both of you, only to have deep regrets four years later when your party decided to coalesce with APNU. And even though I was vexed, I remain with the AFC hoping they would defeat the PPP.

I was soothed by the words of Mr. Ramjattan, who said the main reason for joining with APNU was to defeat the PPP. He further stated that they would hold APNU’s feet to the fire, because in his words “dem can’t run Guyana as dem please, because the AFC will keep dem in their place!”

I envisaged that with Mr. Granger as the presidential candidate, and the experienced Mr. Nagamootoo by his side as Prime Minister, Guyana would have developed and achieved first world status. I was wrong.
Today I feel ashamed and a sense of abandonment, as the party I placed all my confidence in has drifted away, thus leaving me standing alone and no party to turn to. Upon reflection, I did not heed the advice of my mother and several close friends who told me not to join the AFC, because the two of you would forever remain PPP no matter what. They said that you cannot change the stripes of a tiger. My response was, ‘this is a different time and people can change’.

Again, I was wrong, because there was no change in the lust for power by both of you
Seeing your actions during the no confidence motion and the stalling of the 2020 election results, I firmly believe that there can be no compromise between good and evil. You have presided over a government with little or no transparency, and there is no evidence of the underlying principles of integrity, morals, fairness, truth and honour espoused by both of you, and on which the AFC was founded on.

In closing, I would like both of you to remember the immortal words of Ralph Waldo Emerson ‘we do not inherit this world from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children’. I also would ask both of you if political power and the titles of Honourable Prime Minister and Minister are more meaningful than the quality of being humane and men of honour.

I want you to know that in this election, the ship has set sail, but with neither of you on board. May God bless you, as your political careers have come to an end.

Leyland Chitlall Roopnaraine