Executive member of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), Anil Nandlall, has warned of the serious risks associated with electing leaders who disregard democratic values and show little respect for the rule of law.
Nandlall issued the caution on Monday night while addressing a public meeting at Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara.
He reminded residents of efforts made during the 2020 elections to suppress their right to vote – attempts, he noted, that took place within their very own community.
“Just remember five years ago what they did to you in Mon Repos…we had about 8,000 registered voters on the list in Mon Repos and we asked them to create more polling stations…they had identified Mon Repos school as the only polling place,” Nandlall recalled.
He reminded that it was himself and other PPP/C officials who applied pressure on the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) in the presence of observers, to ensure more polling places were established.
Nandlall recalled that “we drove the whole of Mon Repos” to demonstrate the distance residents would have to travel to be able to vote at the only polling place that was established.
“I worked out for them that if one voter takes three minutes to vote, then half of the people in Mon Repos would not be allowed to vote, would not get to vote between 6am and 6p.m. And that you would have to stand in the line for hours and hours; but that is what they wanted,” Nandlall said.
According to him, “they wanted to frustrate you so that you will go home and you will not vote. And we fought with them, and we fought with them until they agreed to put tents on this tarmac. We argued against it, but we had to settle for that.”
Nandlall said despite the harsh conditions such as the ‘boiling hot sun’, residents of Mon Repos persevered and ensured they waited their time to vote.
“Those dangers, comrades, is what you had to go through just to exercise your right to vote,” Nandlall reminded, as he recalled that political party’s history in the 90s.
“How can you trust these people with your children’s future? For 28 years, they did that to your parents and your foreparents. They stole their rights to vote,” he said, referring to the People’s National Congress (PNC).
He also pointed out that when that party, under the umbrella of the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and in coalition with the Alliance For Change (AFC), finally returned to office in 2015 after some 23 years of being in opposition, “many people thought that they changed [but] you saw for five long months what they did as they relentlessly tried to rig those elections.”
Nandlall also reminded that the attempts to steal the 2020 started long before, when the then President David Granger unilaterally appointed a Chairperson of GECOM in the name of Justice James Patterson. He reminded that it was the PPP/C who mounted legal challenges, taking the case all the way to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) which ruled that the appointment was unconstitutional.
“Comrades, I recap those facts simply to remind you that these are not people that you can trust,” the PPP executive said.
Meanwhile, Nandlall also reminded of the PNC’s history in banning the importation of certain foods into the country, noting that the philosophy still lives on within existing leaders, such Aubrey Norton, who is the presidential candidate for the PNC-led APNU.
“This last budget, Norton proudly said in the parliament that the PNC government banned food items in this country and that he is proud of that,” Nandlall reminded.
“Let your foreparents, your grandparents and your parents tell you what we passed through in Mon Repos when flour was banned, dhal was banned, potato was banned, sardine was banned, apples were banned, grapes were banned, channa were banned, you name it, it was banned. And it’s not only banned, if you were found with a roti, you could go to jail.”
“How can you put your children’s future in these people’s hands?” he expressed.
Nandlall, who is also the country’s Attorney General, explained that when a society exists under undemocratic rule, citizens have no rights.
“Once you have dictatorship, you have economic stagnation, you have social degradation. Just look across to Venezuela,” he said.
Guyana, he reminded, also has its own story to tell about the impacts of undemocratic rule.
“It reduced this country as one of the richest colonies of Great Britain. By 1992, when fair elections were restored, we were a bankrupt, broken economy, with half of our population fleeing or fled this land,” Nandlall noted.
In this regard, he reminded voters that “the riggers are still here” and up to now, they have not been apologetic about their actions in the past.
“I am reminding you of these things to tell you that the dangers, the riggers, the fraudsters, are still around. And that is why you can’t take anything for granted,” Nandlall said.
According to the Attorney General, Guyana is currently on an upward developmental trajectory, with improvements across all sectors of the economy; and these successes can quickly unravel if the wrong leaders are elected into government.
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