The lust for power and wealth destroys conscience

Dear Editor,
Guyana is once again on the precipice of a dictatorship which “is a form of Government characterised by the rule of one person or a small group of people who have no checks and balances on their power. While they portrayed to their people as benevolent, loving rulers, dictators typically come to power simply to benefit themselves”. Whilst some dictatorship comes into being by military coups, some rigged the electoral system to get into power and hold on to power. This exactly what is happening in Guyana and what everyone fears, including the international community. Democracy is a treasured commodity and must be upheld at any and all cost!

With this in mind, I was utterly flabbergasted when I read that Nagamootoo wants an ‘international inquiry’ into foreign interference in Guyana’s 2020 General and Regional Elections. He further said that “foreign electoral engineers and their local lackeys have attempted to dislodge a democratically elected Government”.

He described the threats of sanctions as an “undeclared war of terror”. It would seem that Moses Nagamootoo is still under the delusion or by some time travelling that he is under the dictatorial rule of the PNC. One could recall that he would have used similar rhetoric against the PNC whilst he was a member of the PPP. With a mindset from the past, it was easy to do his transposition. Stop this delusion, Moses! You are now part and parcel of the PNC rigging in 2020 and you are supporting what you fought against for 50 years! Where is your conscience?

Moses, you were with the PPP when in 1980 international observers were threatened, beaten and arrested; you were there when international observers were banned from observing the 1985 elections; you were there when the ballot boxes were stolen and stuffed with bogus ballots; you were there when the military killed two of your erstwhile comrades whose only crime was that they wanted to accompany the ballot boxes, and you were there for 28 years and you witnessed the atrocities committed against your Guyanese people.

Moses, you are aware that the PNC used the Elections Commission to rig four General and Regional Elections and one referendum but you are now claiming that the PNC does not run elections and that is the remit of GECOM, a constitutional body. Under the PNC, Article 226 ceased to have legal effect in this country since your party, the PNC has now been flouting the said Constitution since October 2017 when Granger stealthily and in the dead of the night illegally swore in Patterson as GECOM’s Chairman. Moses, you and Ramjattan, the other rubber stamp, supported this illegality even though both of you are lawyers but material gains and the lust for power have taken precedence.

This reminds me of the 32 versus the 33. After the CCJ ruled that the appointment was flawed, Granger was adamant that his interpretation of Article 161 (2) was correct and both of you supported him. How can you still support such a party?

Now again, you and Ramjattan are supporting an electoral process which is so blatantly fraudulent that it is utterly condemned both locally and internationally. Now we are hearing of Guyana being a sovereign state and that foreign countries must not interfere with our electoral process. Both of you begged foreign powers to intervene during the PNC dark era. Sadly, Ramjattan is now in the company of Hamilton Green, an accomplished PNC rigger and thug, trying to convince the Guyanese public that the PPP rigged the 2020 elections and have used the Russians to do so. This is ludicrous and extremely comical. It seems that only a ‘visionary’ like Ramjattan saw that our voting system is electronic and can be hacked into.

Everyone knows that GECOM and the courts are being used to avoid the use of the SoPs and a recount just like the courts were used to delay the effect of the No-Confidence Motion. The question is: Instead of misusing the judicial process, why not withdraw the injunction and allow the use of the SoPs or a recount? Anyone who wins an election will never be afraid of a recount. Simply put, the coalition lost the elections and that’s why they cannot afford to complete the electoral process. Why else will the AFC now want a national unity Government? In 2015, they did not want that!

Perhaps both these self-acclaimed disciples of Cheddi Jagan need to understand that every person witnessed what went on during the tabulation of the Statements of Poll for Region Four. The process of using the SoPs tabulation was stopped after the use of 427 such SoPs and thereafter already tabulated figures continued from a mysterious spreadsheet. Five political parties and the international and local observers saw this fraudulent exercise.

As one local columnist summed it up, “Fiction becomes reality and the counter looks at his corrugated pieces of paper, finds imaginary meaning in them and simply tells an entire country, I counted what I imagined, what I imagined came through, and what came through is what you must accept”. Will these two charlatans ever “invoke their conscience” or are they “beyond redemption”? To quote the columnist, “Is it possible that some humans can exist without that priceless value that Heidegger saw as one of the fulcrums of human existence-conscience?”

Whenever there is a need to spin and fabricate lies, the PNC uses Moses and Ramjattan since this duo has ceased to bring votes to the table and they are not averse to stifling or killing their conscience to continue to eat the crumbs of sin whilst they happily drink from the tears of the poor and downtrodden. This is “politics without principles” which Gandhi warned against. Will these two find that inner being called the conscience?

Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf