Defenders of election rigging: A Marxist and Freudian analysis

Mar 05, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – It is one year since the failure of the fraud designed and perpetuated by elements of the election commission and the PNC and AFC. Almost 99 percent of the global writings on the five months journey into Mephistophelean oceans depict the PNC and AFC as the Draculean creatures and elements of the GECOM secretariat as the Macbethian witches that shaped the evil.
Though that is an accurate description, there must always be emphasis on other dimensions that when given profound analytical treatment will reveal the encouragement given to the perpetrators by the silent, subtle support of certain class and ethnic elements in Guyana.
The curiosity will forever remain – what could and would have happened if these sections of Guyana’s class structure and ethnic anatomy had openly rejected the rigging? Would the PNC and AFC have become so psychologically exhausted that the Faustian instincts would have died long before the month of July?
The analysis to follow looks at two aspects of Guyanese society that though voiced no open, overt endorsement of the tampering with the results, their silence were deliberate and Machiavellian driven by race and class preferences. In an analysis like this, one column will not suffice so there will be part two.
The two compartments are the light-skin, Creole stratum and the middle class in general that opposed Burnham’s drift to socialism and supported Walter Rodney and the WPA because they felt their class status was better assured under a WPA regime than Burnham’s eccentric movement towards Black dictatorship.
The dialectics of class structure in Guyana are very interesting. It is not conceptually possible to separate these two aspects of Guyanese society and treat each one separately. The mulatto ethnic group was able to attract non-Africans from the Guyanese middle class and petty bourgeoisie. For example, many elitist middle class Portuguese and light complexioned Indians were essentially part of the ethnic mulatto world of which light complexioned Indians like Lionel Luckhoo and those who were part of Peter D’Aguiar’s party, the United Force, stand out. In late 20th century Guyana, the Indian, light complexioned, middle class was essentially led by people like Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine of the WPA.
Let’s start with the mixed ethnic group and apply Freud to them. Do you think that it was an oversight that not one person volunteered to write an article in the weekly column, “In the Diaspora,” condemnatory of the shenanigans the PNC and AFC injected in the year long no-confidence motion controversy and the five-month election impasse was carried?
The light complexioned African middle class in Guyana have some formidable Freudian ghosts deeply embedded in their collective mind. They do not want rural Indians, non-Christian Indians, dark-skin Indians and the People’s Progressive Party to govern Guyana. This mental horizon is not related to ethnic hate.
They do not hate or dislike, rural and dark skin Indians and the PPP out of ethnic superiority. They simply feel deep in their Freudian mind that such people are not suitable for governance of West Indian Creole societies and make better business people. It is quite obvious to Guyanese who follow the news where the mulatto folks can be found – in women groups, the professional classes, highly concentrated, complex businesses, academia and a section of the print media.
It was this stratum that engineered the merger between the PNC and WPA opposed only by Walter Rodney’s family and his brothers. They saw the marriage as one that could open up endless possibilities of permanently removing the PPP from government. Elements in both the middle class in general and the mulatto group pushed desperately for a ménage á trios between the PNC, WPA and AFC. It was not by accident that the AFC was initially funded by one of the wealthiest Guyanese families. It was no accident also that only Indians from Berbice opposed the APNU+AFC merger.
In reality then the PPP’s defeat in 2015 was a class battle in which the mulatto group, the petty bourgeoisie and middle class Portuguese and Indians joined the working class PNC to topple the PPP. This columnist supported the AFC. I reacted to the excesses of the Jagdeo/Ramotar presidencies and wanted better for Guyana. I could not see that working class struggle would have been betrayed by APNU+AFC. I have apologized to my country several times for my involvement. I hereby apologize again.
Space has run out, we will conclude in another column but it is important to note that paranoia stepped in when on March 3, it looked like the PPP was coming back into power. The mulatto class and the middle class in general panicked. Part two is forthcoming.

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