A War of Attrition: Why does the PPP want to destroy the boxes in nine regions?

Apr 12, 2020 Features / Columnists, Hinds' Sight with Dr. David Hinds

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It’s six weeks since the March 2 poll and Guyana appears no closer to an election “result” than it was four weeks ago. If anyone believes we are still fighting an election, they are badly out of touch. We are in the midst of a gathering conflict—cold for now, but showing all the signs of getting out of hand.
Of course, nobody wants us to get to that point–not even those who are pushing the situation in that direction. When you are going down a slippery slope, you often find it difficult to climb back up even when danger is apparent. Call me an alarmist–I will plead guilty for now.
Last week, I ended my column with a proposal aimed at stopping the descent down that slippery slope. I proposed that we go straight to the heart of the problem—the disputed election.
My reasoning was, and is, that if we scrap the election, we remove the clear and present danger and allow space for resolution of the problems of which the election is a mere symptom. Towards that end, I suggested an Interim Government made up of the two gladiators, with a clear agenda of constitutional reform and political solution.
In effect, I am proposing a postponement of the election until we put rules in place to ensure that our elections do not turn into civil wars. The proposal arose out of a concern for the wholeness and well-being of the country. It was not aimed at appeasing or attacking any party or ethnic group, but at putting Guyana on an alternative course to the one we are now on.
I knew that neither party would consider it at this time—they are too consumed by what is before them. I knew the PPP and its cheerleaders would be most incensed, as they would see it as a ploy to take from them the victory, which they have prematurely proclaimed. I was not wrong on both counts. They turned the proposal into one aimed at destroying the evidence of their victory. Some even suggested that I was inciting violence.
But despite the noise, it is important at junctures like these that some of us point to another possibility. I refuse to take the easy way out of this impasse. It’s easy to accuse one side or the other of rigging elections. It’s easy to spout niceties about democracy. It’s easy to declare one party the winner of a disputed election. It’s easy to call for a recount of the votes even when one knows that such an exercise would solve nothing. It’s easy to cower in fear in the face of threatened sanctions by the mighty or encourage those sanctions.
But it is not that easy to have to think through where the country is and try to find a path to commonsense. It is not that easy to think beyond the fortunes of the political side you supported and voted for. It is not that easy to think about the elephant in the room and what to do about it. It is not easy to push back against the force of one side whose voice is disproportionately louder than others. It is not that easy to confront our collective fear of the known and the unknown.
In 1961, Eusi Kwayana, then Sydney King, feared that his country was galloping towards trouble, and he put on the table a reasonable solution of Joint Premiership between the two leaders. He floated Partition as a last resort if they rejected living together. Both sides rejected the proposal and told the country that King wanted to divide them.
The country promptly engaged in the most divisive form of political expression—a four-year violent civil war whose consequences have come back to haunt us in the current impasse. It is as if we never learn.
So, despite the crucifixion that I have been subjected to this past week, I still stand firm in my belief that the recount would not lead to resolution and reconciliation. In fact, it may well lead to the very opposite.
Already we are seeing the signs of trouble. They are having difficulty arriving at agreed conditions for the count. The PPP has changed course and now wants only a recount of Region Four votes. They now want to “destroy“ the boxes in the other nine regions. They don’t want certain GECOM officials to be part of the exercise. They want partial verification. They want to unilaterally control the recount.
On the other side of the divide, some Coalition supporters are saying that the recount is illegal. They point to the fact that there is already a count and declarations from the ten regions waiting to be certified. They draw attention to the fact that after five weeks in the courts, there is no legal order for GECOM to recount the votes or to invalidate the declarations of the ten regions.
Others have introduced the idea of an exhaustive recount that takes in every facet of the electoral process. There is even talk of an audit.
Clearly, we are in the face of a “war of attrition.” We now realise that there is no magic in the recount that many of us supported. The PPP tricked us into believing that it really wanted a full recount. Now we know that they always wanted a partial recount in the boxes where they think the Coalition is vulnerable, and they are against a recount of the boxes in which they think they are vulnerable.
They are opposed to Lowenfield’s timeline because they fear it would expose their vulnerabilities. The PPP and their friends asked what does the Coalition have to hide in the Region Four boxes? We must now ask: What does the PPP have to hide in the boxes of the other nine regions?
I think the PPP wants to count the Region Four boxes first for the following reasons. First, if the Region Four count proves their numbers correct, they will refuse to continue the count and declare victory. If it disproves their numbers, they will refuse to continue, and claim that the Coalition tampered with the boxes while the “guardians’ were sleeping.
So, as I said last week, if they happen to get past the modalities, I doubt that we would get to a completed count.
The PPP spun my proposal from last week to make it look as if I proposed the destruction of the ballot boxes to hide some evidence of the Coalition’s loss of the election and the PPP’s victory. They turned a peace proposal into a war proposal.
I now ask: Why does the PPP want to “destroy“ the boxes in nine regions?

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
More of Dr. Hinds’ writings and commentaries can be found on his YouTube Channel Hinds’ Sight: Dr. David Hinds’ Guyana-Caribbean Politics and on his website www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.news. Send comments to dhinds6106@aol.com

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