The APNU+AFC will only accept the list if it wins

Sep 07, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – It is reported that the APNU+AFC met with diplomatic representatives of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Canada and the European Union. They purportedly discussed issues relating to the voters’ list.

The representatives of the western countries are not likely to be swayed by anything that the APNU+AFC has to say about electoral democracy. It is somewhat barefaced of the Coalition to be lobbying the western nations – the same countries which they accused of installing the PPP/C in power.

If the western states are supposed to be in bed with the PPP/C to the point whereby they orchestrated the PPP/C’s return to power, why would the Coalition government be going to them seeking their support? You do not go to the devil and ask him for a blessing.

The western states know what happened following the March 2, 2020 general and regional elections. They are quite clear as to who stood to benefit from the attempt to rig the elections. They are quite clear about the lies which were peddled and the dishonest acts which were committed. They knew who concocted certain narratives to justify the attempt at rigging the elections.

The United States of America imposed travel sanctions of persons concerned with undermining the democratic process. Some of those persons are believed to be connected to the APNU+AFC.

It is to the PPP/C’s discredit that it allowed those sanctions to be lifted. The PPP/C has let the ball drop; it should have relentlessly used its strong lobbying power in the United States to make this ban permanent. It is not too late to have that ban reintroduced so as to serve as a deterrent to those who might wish to attempt electoral fraud in the future.

The western diplomatic community had a front seat view of the attempt to rig the 2020 general and regional elections. It understood clearly what was happening, who were involved and what role each person was playing.

It is not going to be easily duped into believing that the APNU+AFC is now converted to democratic politics. Not when the APNU+AFC continues with this discredit and utterly ridiculous line that dead and migrant persons voted right under the noses of their polling agents.

The western nations are not going to take the APNU+AFC serious when it continues to peddle to the nation that it was them, the western states, which installed the PPPC government in office above the wishes of the people. So long as the APNU+AFC continues to peddle this discredited narrative, whatever it says is going to be received out of courtesy but not taken seriously.

Like Desmond Hoyte did after the 1997 elections, the APNU+AFC has boxed itself into a corner from which it can only escape by further embarrassing itself. Desmond Hoyte declared the Janet Jagan government was illegal. But in the end, he was forced to crawl back into the National Assembly which he and his party had boycotted.

The western nations cannot save the APNU+AFC. The crisis which the Coalition faces is a crisis of its own making. The APNU+AFC is a victim of its own creation. It has peddled a narrative and now it finds itself in a situation in which it cannot contest local government elections because it claims that the list is bloated.

But the voter turnout in 2015 was not much different from that in 2020. The voter turnout in 2015 was 71.36%.  The voter turnout in 2020 was 70.24, not much of a difference. Yet in 2015 when the APNU+AFC won, there were no accusations by the Coalition that the list was bloated. The APNU+AFC only has problems with the list when it loses. But when it wins, it has no problem with the list.

The Opposition cannot have their cake and eat it too. It cannot conveniently not find problems with the list when it wins, but finds fault when it loses. It cannot accept a system of continuous registration, yet want a new house-to-house registration.

No list is going to be acceptable to the APNU+AFC unless it delivers a victory. This is the credibility crisis which faces the Coalition, and regardless of what it believes, the western nations are not oblivious to the fact that democracy and the APNU+AFC do not sit comfortably together.

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