Mr. Lewis, Where Were You in 2020?

Jun 05, 2025 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – Mr Lincoln Lewis recently wrote a letter to the editor. The tone of his language in his letter can easily be described as abusive and insulting.

Mr Lewis makes three ‘or else’ demands. He wants them implemented in 90 days:

1.  A clean, credible voters’ list

2.  Biometric voter verification

3.  Total reform of GECOM 

Having laid down his demands, Mr Lewis then proceeded to issue what implicitly was an ultimatum: ‘I urge my fellow Guyanese to support every lawful action necessary to protect our democratic rights. We cannot remain silent while our democracy is being dismantled before our eyes. And the time to act is now, not tomorrow. Now!’

Mr Lewis’ call for ‘Lawful action’ was in effect a euphemism for protest actions. And his talk about protecting ‘‘our democratic rights’ sounds rather Rip Van Winkle-ish.

I searched for references for a more combative call by Lewis during the March-August 2020 period when persons associated with the APNU+AFC were trampling on the democratic rights of the electorate to elect the government of their choice. Predictably, I came up empty-handed. I can only conclude that Mr. Lewis’ reference to ‘democratic rights’ is a political football to be kicked around so long as it is the PPP/C who is in government.

Standing on a high ground, Mr. Lewis proceeded to make a flawed comparative ‘analysis’ to justify his call for elections not to be held unless his three demands are met; ‘In 1990, responding to demands from political parties and civil society, President Desmond Hoyte rescinded the prorogation of Parliament to address urgent calls for electoral reform.’

Lewis then made an unhinged leap from 1990 to 2025, suggesting that President Ali should do as Hoyte did in 1990. In so doing, Mr. Lewis conveniently overlooked the fact that President Hoyte did not agree to institute a slew of electoral reforms as an act of benevolence; he did so under immense pressure. Let me remind Mr Lewis, Mr. Hoyte was called upon by the then US Bush administration and a number of American congressmen and Senators, as well as Canadian and British parliamentarians and the Carter Centre, to implement electoral reforms. At first, he deemed electoral reforms ‘logistical nightmares’ but under pressure, he relented.

Further, Mr. Hoyte was cautioned that failure to hold free and fair elections would, in effect, jeopardise his IMF-funded Economic Recovery Programme (ERP).

In case Mr. Lewis may have experienced a senior moment, he should be reminded that domestically, pressure was exerted by the joint political opposition under the Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (PCD), whose leaders also pressed for electoral reforms. More significantly, the business community, as well as the Heads of the Catholic and Anglican churches in Guyana at that time, joined in the call for free and fair elections.

Since Mr Lewis will deny that he is in another stratosphere, perhaps he can say whether the conditions today are similar to those that existed in 1990? And maybe he can offer an explanation, if he can, about what’s keeping the leaders of the political opposition who, rather than flocking together, are at each other’s throats with daggers drawn, moreso when their benefactors and mediators have all failed, having been effectively sidelined.

While Mr Lewis is trying to sort out those conundrums, perhaps he can attempt to explain to readers his assertion that ‘The working class of this country fought hard for the right to ‘one-man-one-vote.’

While this assertion is noteworthy, what Lewis failed to tell readers is why, how and who denied the same working class, the right to elect a government of their choice because of rigged elections in 1968, 1970 (LGE), 1973, 1978 (referendum), 1980, 1985, in 1990 when attempts were made to do so unsuccessfully and in 2020 when it was again attempted but failed. The big question that remains unanswered is: where was Mr Lewis’ voice during the politically stormy period from March to August 2020?

In a reckless and undiplomatic manner, Lewis took aim at the diplomatic community in our country as if they were inattentive and the least concerned about the electoral process in Guyana; thus he wrote, ‘And we must say this too: the diplomatic community is not blameless. Too many are silent, complicit, or worse, enabling this charade. They once did the same under apartheid. They turned a blind eye to Gaza. And now they pretend not to see what’s going on in Guyana.’

Mr. Lewis’ attack on the diplomatic community is reminiscent of the attack by PNC operatives on Ambassadors, diplomats and overseas election observers and the attempts to remove them from the scene of the rigging that was underway at Ashmin’s building, where they witnessed the chaos, confusion and protests that resulted. And as though that was not enough, they were abused and insulted by a hostile crowd.

Lewis’ resort to his constitutional right to freedom of speech was abused, if not weaponised in the form of an unconstrained verbal attack on the diplomatic community here in Guyana.

Mr. Lewis is one of a few in our midst who claim to represent the democratic will of African Guyanese. In pursuit of that belief, they stoke existential anxieties about elections in Guyana, linking it to ethnic insecurities and appeals to fight off claims of marginalisation using the call for free and fair elections as a false flag to do so.

In his letter, Lewis sought to bolster his standing as a defender of democracy and yet simultaneously glide over many transgressions of democracy in this country.

Lewis, in his letter, chose not to face up to the ways in which Guyana’s present reality is not in sync with his past self, or how his political outlook conflicts with a much higher level of political awareness of Guyanese compared to where it was more than 50 years ago.

Yours faithfully,

Clement J. Rohee

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• Biometric voter verification, Clement J. Rohee, credible voters’ list, Lincoln Lewis

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