Readers' Response

Dear Editor:
The PPP will win the upcoming general elections not because of racial voting or because the people yet want them, but because there is no satisfactory alternative on the local scene that is better than them.
You look around and see nobody really worthy of replacing them. Strenuous efforts are being made to denigrate them, to reduce their status so that others could compare favourably to them, but at election time all that effort will be wasted.
I think the PNCR is at fault. It yet wants to hold on to the image that it is an African Party. This became clear when Winston Murray sought its leadership. Elements high up in the Party cold-shouldered him and even insulted him. After his demise the Party held an internal election, possibly the first and only democratic election in its whole history, and elected a presidential candidate.
That person admittedly was very close to the founder-leader and shortly after his election he publicly declared that he knows of no evidence that the Party ever rigged national elections. That is like the Pakistan Government saying that neither itself nor its secret service had any knowledge that the world's most wanted man was living for five years almost next door to its military academy. It is possible, but highly improbable.
What the PNCR presidential candidate did there was to disclose the mindset, after all these years, yet prevailing within that Party.
I think the people of Guyana keep on voting the way they do because the majority of them really and truly fear that if the PNCR, by the back-door or otherwise, ever again accede to power, they will not want to lose it and will return to the rigging mechanism, and there is absolutely nothing to prevent them from doing so.
They yet see nothing wrong with it, and apparently they were keeping their skills honed in internal party elections. Therefore they cannot now acknowledge or abjure it and the issue of an apology to the nation does not arise. They are not seeing how very necessary that healing process is.
They are accusing the East Indian of racism because they will not vote for the PNCR. I think if the East Indians, and the people of Guyana as a whole, ever become fully satisfied that nobody, not even the PNCR, could ever again rig elections, they will vote their interests, no matter which Party or leader champions those interests.
The PNCR needs to change and become a truly multi-racial party. Until this happens, general elections will be largely a waste of time and money, because the PPP will always win.
I seriously wonder if they are really not seeing it, or is it a case in which their racial pride is so assertive, it absolutely needs separate identity and recognition, and will not allow non-African leadership of the Party.
They have brilliant people within that party who surely see that the population of the country is divided into roughly two moieties, one a homogeneous block of East Indians and the other a heterogeneous block of disparate folks in which the African predominates.
The PPP has the first block largely tied off, and the PNCR has compressed and secluded itself into a second block which is not large enough to give it victory at the polls.
This has given rise to the concept of a third block or Third Force, which the AFC theoretically is trying to organise and lead, but in reality it is seeking its support from the two former blocks. This will not succeed. That second block should be organised into the counter-force for the first block, and what it needs is to get a common acceptable leader, a leader who will not only solidify it but also pull in support from the first block.
Because the PNCR controls the largest segment of the second block does not mean it must always have the leadership. What is required here is to weld that block together and if for any reason an African leader cannot do it, and so far none seem to have the ability, then in the interest of the nation racial pride and assertiveness should be abandoned in the search for a person who can do it.
I believe there are persons in the country who can do it, but they may not be Africans or within the PNCR. I do not personally know these people so I make my assessment upon their public personalities. I mention just four names here and I hope I am not causing them any offence. I am sure there are many others which people in the second block could search for and find. I mention the name Moses Nagamootoo first and foremost, and then after him Dr. David Hinds, Mr. Ravi Dev and Dr. Joey Jagan. People might raise eyelids about the last, but if he has the energy and determination I think he can do it.
David Granger could have been another choice too, but I think he has already shown that he has the mind-set of the old time PNCR and that could be a disqualification. Unless such a person is found without delay and energetically set about the welding process, the next elections will be just a shoo-in for the PPP.
It is not that I am against the PPP, for I think they have done fairly well in their time in office. But I am one of those who think that when a party remains in office for too long, maybe because of the frailty of human nature, it becomes counter-productive and corruption and crime more easily raise their ugly heads. I believe that is happening in Guyana now, which is why I think governance should be changed in free and fair elections every two terms. I sincerely hope something is done and Guyana moves on, for we have been stuck in a mud-hole for too long.
Kumar D. Doobay via email