Election 2020: The remains of the day

Aug 29, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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During the past five months of unprecedented social uncertainties that threatened the very future of this country, my columns were devoted to exposing election rigging, praising those who were helping to save Guyana, condemning those who were encouraging election rigging, and calling upon my fellow Guyanese to stop the death of Guyana.
So much went on in that period that needs to be written on. Decades from now, younger folks will read about the March 2020 election horror show that lasted for five months, an exceptional negative event in the 20th century world and at the beginning of the 21st century.
During those five months, I ignored the vilifications that were written about me in the Nagamootoo-controlled Chronicle. Those things don’t bother me. Three commentaries on my election 2020 analyses slipped by and that was because I was preoccupied (and still so because I will write about election 2020 in the weeks and months to come).
I know from my 50 years of social activism and 32 years in media work, people from all types of age groups want answers to some of the things said about my work. Here now is my reaction to four letters whose replies I didn’t find time and space for. The first one is by Mr. Rohit Kanhai, a long standing executive of the so-called WPA Overseas Group. The second one is from a group of students who claimed they are graduates from a school that Eusi Kwayana founded. The third pronouncement was from former AFC minister, Cathy Hughes. The fourth missive is from Vincent Alexander which space constraint will dictate a separate reply in a forthcoming article.
I will collapse my attitude to Kanhai (KN June 12) and Kwayana’s former students (KN August 18) into one reply since both correspondences expressed the same sentiment – I have attacked Kwayana unfairly. Kanhai wants me to apologize to Kwayana but he does not identify specific items of fictions I have attributed to Kwayana that warrant an apology. Kwayana’s former students get into some strange expressions. They argue that such an iconic figure is deserving of respect from Guyanese and I have been abusive.
The vexations of these people centre on my criticism of Kwayana’s writings on the election impasse in the letters he sent to the newspapers. I have no intention of withdrawing any words of castigation or condemnation I wrote against Kwayana. I believe those assertions are based on serious faults of Kwayana.
There is no need for an elongated critique. He repeated several times that he cannot arrive at definite conclusions on the rigged poll because he was/is not in possession of the facts. In a barefaced twist of irony, he offers his comments based on other facts. What Kwayana did was inexcusable and exposed his innate character that maybe he hid for over 70 years.
He could not pronounced on what Mingo, Lowenfield, Singh, the three PNC GECOM commissioners, and the APNU+AFC leaders were doing (despite an AFC leader exposing the fraud – the president’s son-in-law, Dominic Gaskin) but he could freely state that the US was using its incessant interference in Guyana’s election imbroglio to distract attention from nation-wide street protests. He also knew that CARICOM chairman, Ralph Gonsalves, made a comment on the election results while the case was before the courts. This man was simply incredibly barefaced. I have lost respect for him.
Cathy Hughes (KN, August 19) wrote to correct me on two things; AFC parliamentarian Juretha Fernandes has Indigenous genes and secondly, she Hughes, entered parliament in 2011 not 2006. I have written literally dozens and dozens of critiques over the five years that the AFC was in power exposing excessive political depravities and power degeneracy of the AFC and never saw a response from Ms. Hughes that Guyanese wherever they live would have wanted to know about and still do.
So I will solicit answers from Ms. Hughes on these AFC political sarcomas I have often touched upon. She was part of a group of AFC leaders that in May 2015, in indentifying the AFC’s ministries, called a woman who was not an AFC activist or campaigner and offered her the Ministry of the Environment. Secondly, why did the AFC sign a renewed Cummingsburg Accord with the PNC and parts of that covenant had to remain secret even to the executive members who should have made that decision in the first place?
Thirdly, was the PNC justified in reducing AFC’s share of power from the 40 percent agreed in 2015 to 30 percent in 2020? Finally, where is the AFC’s proof as Ms. Hughes and Mr. Ramjattan claimed in a press conference that the Russians attempted to interfere in the 2020 elections?

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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