Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Feb 01, 2023 Letters
Dear Editor,
The late US politician, diplomat and sociologist, Daniel P. Moynihan popularized the phrase “semantic infiltration”, coined by foreign policy expert, Frank Ikle, to describe the “systematic distortion of meaning of certain words to confuse or mislead”. Semantic infiltration is essentially a form of propaganda or disinformation that is designed to manipulate public opinion or shape public information for political advantage. According to Senator Moynihan it “is the process whereby we come to adopt the language of our adversaries in describing political reality”.
This weaponization of language is a regularly employed, and very successful, tactic of mainly right-wing, anti-democratic political interests which popularity and effect has proliferated since the Trump presidency in the USA. The former President himself was assessed to have told 30,573 mistruths during his presidency which spawned the phrase “alternative facts” to counter and defend against perceptions of wilful and pervasive dishonesty, distortion and deception. The most spectacular example of this is the “Big Lie” which continues to claim that Trump won the 2020 presidential elections in the US but was denied due to extensive electoral fraud. This claim was repeated ad nauseum and propagated by acolytes, accomplices and various media platforms and ultimately led to a conspiracy to commit fraud, insurrection and coup d’état for which several investigations have been launched, hundreds arrested and charged and several convicted, some for seditious conspiracy. Moreover, the January 6 Select Committee of the US House of Representatives has made four criminal referrals – obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to make a false statement, incite, assist, or aid and comfort an insurrection – against the former president and others.
Apart from the actual and potential criminal conduct, the “Big Lie” has also led to threats and harassment of election workers and voters and state legislatures creating criminal penalties for normal election activities and steps to strip election officials of the ability to run and certify elections under the guise of “election integrity” which is an obvious strategy to suppress the vote and remove non-partisan control of the election process in order to ensure a desired result. Earlier this year, following claims that the October 22, 2022 National Elections in Brazil were stolen, thousands of supporters of the defeated president stormed the country’s parliament, presidential palace and Supreme Court reminiscent of the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol, in what has been labelled a “neo-fascist coup”.
The Guyana 2020 General and Regional Elections preceded the US Presidential elections by more than 6 months and many of the tactics employed by the forces of election denial, false claims of fraud, harassment of election workers, violent protest and insurrection, and contingent elections appeared here first and with greater success. It could be argued that support for this strategy, particularly among strategic actors, was much greater here and preparation for it more thorough. First, there was the pre-election phase initiated with the “No-confidence Vote” intended to unseat a democratically-elected government, not at the polls, but by treachery misrepresented as conscientious, principled and patriotic protest, followed by a vigorous campaign of economic and political destabilization, allegations of intent to rig the elections, legal campaigns to resist cleansing the voters list and replacement of Justice Patterson as Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission. Then came the election campaign and a co-ordinated series of actions, justified by dubious claims of possessing evidence of fraud and spurious demands for “verification”, to discredit and disrupt the tabulation of votes, prevent an unfavourable declaration and introduce contingent procedures for tabulation and certification to reverse legitimate results, through fraud, harassment of election workers, insurrection and international pressure to effect a coup d’état. To this date, and in spite of having instituted 32 electoral fraud charges against several election officials and its political opponents, and having established a Commission of Inquiry into alleged election fraud, the PPPC has not provided an iota of evidence to substantiate its claims. In comparison in the US at least 978 people have been charged and 530 convicted, including 50 for serious conspiracy crimes relating to the insurrection.
The leaders of at least 5 political parties (ANUG, CG, LJP, PPP/C, TCI) that participated in the elections had publicly, and repeatedly, declared that many of the Statements of Poll (SOP) presented by the Returning Officer of District 4 did not correspond with the SOPs in their possession reflecting very significant increases for APNU+AFC, and corresponding decreases for PPPC, the sum total of which reflected a divergence of over 22,000 votes (which is more than the total vote in every other region except for Regions 3 and 6). Such a large figure suggests that hundreds of SOPs were compromised yet they could not produce one, choosing now to obfuscate by referencing recount data which is ex post facto and therefore irrelevant. A simple comparison of the serial numbers, vote count and signatures of election officers and counting agents on the identified SOPs would have established the veracity, or otherwise, of those claims but that was not the type of ‘verification, they wished to pursue. It is also not the type of enquiry the COI is intent on pursuing. It is clear that these parties, with much assistance from strategic actors, chose to reject the constitutional remedy for election disputes and resorted to fraud, violent insurrection and contingent elections.
Former British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli said that “a precedent embalms a principle”. The US and Brazil have demonstrated that they reject the precedent forced upon them and have determined to resolutely uphold the principles of free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power. Guyana, it seems, is yet to decide whether it will perpetuate or reject, like the USA and Brazil, what has been termed the new contagion likely to spread throughout the hemisphere undermining democracies and threatening international security and stability, Guyana’s future as an important player in the world economy depends on it.
Sincerely,
Oscar Dolphin
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