For how long will we treat truth as our enemy?

BY: DR TARA SINGH

I watched in disbelief a KN radio programme interview with Jaipaul Sharma, de facto Junior Minister of Finance. It was laughable when he stated boldly that they (PNCR) don’t interfere with the operations of GECOM.
The public knows otherwise. Like an individual who is pre-programmed, he began to belch out a series of attacks on the PPPC, claiming, among other things, that the PPPC was involved in election rigging from the compilation of the voters’ list to the Election Day process.

Despite those imaginary PPPC wrongdoings, he was adamant that his PNCR-AFC party won the 2020 elections. When asked to produce evidence that his party won the elections, he mentioned that he knew that from an analysis of the large crowds that they had at various election rallies, as well as from what their supporters told him.
If they can’t figure out that 33 is a majority of 65, what other type of analysis could they perform with any measure of credibility?

Jaipaul Sharma disputed the prevailing condition that the election screening was robust; an observation also held by the EU Ambassador and election observers. He thinks instead that it was porous.
Sharma also stated nonchalantly that the PPPC collected ID cards from overseas Guyanese and issued those to their supporters to vote. Of course, he had no evidence to produce. His comments were supposedly taken from the PNCR strategy book (also referred to as talking points) and reeled out mechanically.

Former PNCR-AFC MP, the man who caused the government to fall through a no-confidence motion (NCM), had indicated at a meeting in New York and another one in Toronto that the NCM shattered the PNCR plans at widespread rigging of the 2020 elections. Prior to the passage of the NCM in December 2018, Charrandas Persaud stated that he was at the Marriott Hotel (in 2016) with another PNCR MP, Allen. He noticed that Allen was complaining that he was tired, to which Charrandas retorted, “Man, you are in Parliament once a week and get a full salary and you complain!” The response of his colleague was: “I have to go to the interior with Minister Winston Felix to hand out birth certificates to Haitians and Venezuelans, so that they could be registered to vote.”

This allegation was restated on KN radio 592 on July 14, 2020. Charrandas said that PNCR operatives threatened to kill him because he shattered one major aspect of their rigging programme. The public had always been apprehensive about the tens of thousands of birth certificates that Felix had ordered. In Charrandas’s view some of those birth certificate forms were used for that specific purpose.

Of course, Sharma would steer away from this subject. He would prefer less turbulent waters. Sharma’s approach lacks scholarship. What seems obvious is that Sharma was describing the rigging modus operandi of the PNCR, and only putting the label onto the PPPC. He is aware that his party has perfected the art of electoral rigging. No other party could come near to them.

He skilfully avoids talking about the Mingo and Lowenfield fraudulent elections’ declaration of March 13, 2020; a declaration not based on the GECOM-certified Statement of Poll (SOPs) for Region 4. If Sharma knows that his party won the elections, why didn’t they release their SOPs on March 13, 2020 to validate their claim? Why didn’t GECOM’s CEO Keith Lowenfield produce his original copies of the SOPs either? Sounds like a complicity? If a party claims since March 13, 2020 that it won the elections, why was it afraid and refused to produce its copies of SOPs for purposes of verification?

Jaipaul Sharma must know that there is no way that the PNCR coalition could have won the 2020 elections. First, if he used size of rallies as a crude indicator of support, then the PPPC crowds were significantly larger than his party’s. But the more significant point is that his party (PNCR) has done nothing of significance – no transformative project during their 5-year term – and has once again brought the country to the verge of bankruptcy.

The PNCR’s imposition of 200 new tax measures has led to a drastic decline in consumer spending, and those unleashed greater pressures on the poverty rate, which stands around 40%. Added to these travesties is the runaway corruption, including the grabbing of state lands for their cronies. The PNCR has made the PPPC level of corruption look like child’s play. They (PNCR) have killed both local and foreign investments, apart from those related to the oil sector.

Sharma does not have to go far to ascertain the reasons for their loss. Apart from their poor economic performance, their main partner, AFC, could not bring them the 10% PPPC votes that they captured in 2015. Those 10% votes have returned to their base, the PPPC. This alone could explain Sharma’s party’s defeat. There was no need for him to contrive conspiracy theories to explain his party’s loss.

Also, there was no need for the spewing of lies. For how long would we allow the truth to be our enemy?