Latest update April 20th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 10, 2015 Features / Columnists, My Column
Tomorrow is a big day in the life of the country. It is the day when the nation goes to the polls, not that Guyanese have never voted or that there has never been election fever. It is not that both the government and the opposition have never been hyped up. But this one is different. There is something about these elections that have people all over the country muttering something.
The tension is high and for good reason. Never since 1992 have I seen a nation so bent on voting the government out of office. But today is also the day when we go wild, trying to make our mothers queen, some merely queen for a day. I will be placing a long distance call to mine whom the Man above has allowed me to keep for all these years.
Some of us will shed tears because we have lost ours but for the greater part, we will open our hearts to the woman who brought us here and who helped us along, sometimes going without things she needed and did not complain.
There are those mothers who would be visiting the jails to make a connection with their errant children and some to give cheer to those mothers who are incarcerated.
But whether we noticed it or not, there was not much talk about Mother’s Day this time around. The day has been superseded by something much bigger—the elections. Perhaps, because of this, Mother’s Day will come later.
I remember the 1992 elections very well. The People’s National Congress was in power and had been there for nearly three decades. The opposition campaign was like none other. In fact, so intense was the opposition campaign that the leaders of the People’s Progressive Party went so far as to agree to the postponement of the 1990 elections.
The elections commission was not what it was today; it was controlled by the government, its Chairman handpicked by the then president. Talk of a rigged election was never more strident, so that when the PPP got President Jimmy Carter to come, one of the things they impressed on him was that the structure of the elections commission be changed. They also got Carter to agree that all votes be counted at the place of poll.
I remember that day, October 5, 1992. The people campaigning for the government worked hard as usual, but they ran into many of their supporters who simply told them that they were not going to vote. Desmond Hoyte had turned things around and had been able to get many of the disillusioned supporters to come back into the fold, but the deed had already been done.
I still believe that those elections were closer than the final result showed, but across the country there were problems with the voters’ list. People’s names were on the list outside the polling stations but when they got to the polling agents, their names were not there. Confusion was rife.
I remember people turning up at the headquarters of the elections commission demanding to vote and in the end being allowed to vote. I also remember the late Dr Ptolemy Reid going to them and telling them to go home; that the vote at the elections commission was useless.
There are no such problems this time around. In fact, there are more people on the list than should be, but that is another matter. What have added to the tension are reports coming out of areas that once strongly supported the government of the day.
Entrenched governments have a way of taking people for granted. Leaders often ignore the communities that supported them, in a way, actually displaying arrogance. The Essequibo Coast, a stronghold of the PPP, seems to have swung dramatically, largely because the government did not pay the kind of attention it should have to the rice farmers.
There are the sugar farmers on the Corentyne who also feel neglected. In some places these people are reportedly telling their leaders that it might be a bit too late. That comment has been directed to the overwhelming presence of the leaders of the PPP.
There is another angle to all this. It has to do with honesty. People across the country have sat in the face of irregular practices. They have seen contracts awarded to those who then lord it over the less fortunate. These contractors have often dealt harshly with the people who worked for them and these people are supporters of the government.
There is one man who is confined to a wheel chair on the Essequibo Coast. He was a staunch supporter of the PPP, but he is convinced that the party ignored him in his time of need. He is blaming that party for his present state. His story was told in the press.
I remember a case like that soon after the 1992 elections. A woman needed a kidney and although she was a strong supporter of the government, the help did not come. People who were not known supporters of the government displayed that human touch and the woman got her life back. But that changed her allegiance and she remains firmly a supporter of the political opposition.
I looked at some of the advertisements and saw some shocking revelations. I saw tales of people growing from rags to billionaires because of Government largesse. I saw Government people, some of them relatively poor, becoming multi-millionaires literally overnight. The voters saw these things and simply said to themselves, enough is enough.
How can one explain how the churches, to a man, are offering prayers for the opposition? These are people who place God above all else, but they have turned their attention to national issues because they too saw what everyone else saw.
People are hyped up, but that too has its problems. At another level that could be considered trivial, people were hyped up about the fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. I saw their disappointment when some of them lost. These elections are more than a fight between two rich boxers.
Where is the BETTER MANAGEMENT/RENEGOTIATION OF THE OIL CONTRACTS you promised Jagdeo?
Apr 20, 2024
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