…the (political) fires
The PNC entered the March 2 elections kicking and screaming. It took god-knows-how-many-trips to the three levels of the judicial system to get them there. They’d complained about the voters list for a year…the list drawn from the same National Register on which they’d won the 2015 elections!! They proudly boasted about the efficiency of the voting process on March 2, which was overseen by individuals hired and trained by the GECOM Secretariat.
Everything was hunky-dory until late in the evening, as the votes were counted and the SOPs were sent up to the GECOM Regional Offices, AND TO THEM (and the other parties), and they realised they’d lost the elections!!
From what we now know, they decided to “cock the works” at the Reg 4 RO. This was under the control of their man Mingo, staffed with some loyalists and directly accessible to their second-tier leaders to conduct disruptions under which the count could be questioned and rigged.
The rest is (sordid) history, recapitulating the repeated political onslaughts of the PNC and their destruction of Guyanese democracy. Luckily, they were headed off at the pass by the International Community – who arrived like the cavalry in those old US westerns of yore! But did the PNC accept they were rejected by the majority of Guyanese? No siree Bob…that’s not the PNC way! Like Hoyte in 1997, they went to the courts, claiming the elections were flawed.
And when the most eminent Chief Justice Desiree Bernard threw out their petition on Jan 12 1998, the massed PNC supporters in front of the High Court rampaged through the streets of Georgetown – especially Regent Street – beating supposed supporters of the PPP – read “Indian Guyanese”.
Well, on Monday, we almost had a repetition! Following in the footsteps of Hoyte, the PNC hierarchy led by Harmon and Granger kept up the incendiary rhetoric of “we wuz robbed”, and “regime change” by outside forces. Their first petition had already been rejected by CJ George – for legal incompetence in not serving Granger, one of the parties to the action!!
So, to no one’s surprise, after Chief Justice Roxanne George delivered her flawlessly reasoned judgement, that the PNC had not produced the evidence that the election was so flawed it had to be overturned, the massed PNC supporters marched through Georgetown, especially down Regent Street. The one thing that saved us from a full-scale riot was the prescience of the Police, who deployed so many ranks on the ground with the PNC protestors they just couldn’t escalate into “rampage” mode.
But, as Rowley, the prophet predicted, this will not end well.
Did you read Harmon’s incendiary post-verdict diatribe?
…resistance to gas for power
There’s been so much kvetching by the naysayers – led by the newly “woke” publisher of the old Muckraker – on the gas-to-shore power generation project (GTS-PGP) at Wales, that VP Jagdeo, leading the initiative, summoned all the publishers and editors in the land to address all their concerns at one time. Their complaint was that there must be “studies” conducted to show the feasibility of the project.
So, right off the bat, the VP informed them that the Govt had been informed by FIVE STUDIES – all extolling the feasibility of the GTS-PGP!! But did that satisfy the assembled critics? Nah! And why? Well, that the studies had been commissioned by the APNU/AFC administration – from reputable institutions like the IDB. So these gatekeepers – who’re also baying for the PPP to cooperate with their predecessor regime – are now insisting that the PPP reject everything the PNC did?!
Makes your Eyewitness wonder if it’s not the GTS-PGP but Jagdeo these folks don’t like!
…COVID-19 spread
Your Eyewitness has been pleading for months that we take this COVID-19 pandemic seriously. He feels no pride that our numbers are proving his concerns to be spot on.
Ultimately, it all comes down to “we, the people,” doing our bit.
