…and the PNC
While the incident might appear small, it has great significance in what it reveals about the fundamental nature of the PNC, which has unfortunately remained true since the 1960s. Knowing that it’s been the tradition in Guyana for parties to register on Nomination Day on a “first come, first served” basis, three small parties camped out in front of the Umana Yana overnight, to ensure they wouldn’t be lost in the circus to come later in the day.
But as was plaintively recorded by a member of ANUG – one of the early birds – when he went up to the booth as the first to register, he was told the PNC (let’s not kid ourselves about any “coalition”) had already been signed in as “first”!! The fella didn’t take this lying down: he questioned the GECOM CEO, who was in charge of the operation, and was told, “Sorry, there’s nothing I can do about it”!! And imagine the fella insists that “GECOM is an autonomous body”!!!
What the incident reveals is that the PNC is, was and always will be a BULLY to every individual, institution or body in Guyana. What could be more domineering than seeing a queue in place to initiate a supposedly DEMOCRATIC election, out of left field someone jumps the line and insists they must be treated first?? This thuggish behaviour doesn’t just violate democratic norms but the norms of common decency and morality.
While some have commented on how amiable the PNC treated the PPP, after an initial skirmish, it has been truly said that you judge someone’s character not by how they treat their equals, but their “inferiors”. What would it have cost the PNC to allow those three minnows to register ahead of them?? But no!! The PNC must always be first, highest and indeed, PARAMOUNT!! It wasn’t even ironic that the Appellate Court over which the PNC once flew their party flag to signify their paramountcy over the judiciary, is right next door to the Umana Yana!!
The bullyism of the PNC extends within and without and as such inevitably influences the behaviour of its supporters. Contrary to the choir-boy image he carefully cultivates, Granger learnt his bullyism from Burnham himself after he was hand-picked to be the political indoctrination officer of the GDF. From Granger’s bullying of the AFC to accept a degutting of the Cummingsburg Accord to disdainfully dismissing a judgement of the High Court – in the form of the Chief Justice – as “her perception” and I have mine – to the present harassment of PPP supporters and hauling down their party flags, these form one seamless fabric of PNC bullyism!
They will intensify their bullyism as their end becomes nigh!!
…and constitutional change
Your Eyewitness hopes Lincoln Lewis appreciates the irony of him baldly claiming on January 12 in his KN Column that, “It was massive prolonged street protest in 1997, led by Leader of the Opposition Desmond Hoyte, that put in train actions to achieve a more inclusionary political culture.” “Massive”? “Prolonged”? What happened to “violent”?? It’s like calling WWII a “massive, prolonged skirmish”!!
On January 12, 1998, after weeks of the mentioned “PNC protests”, more than 200 Indian-Guyanese were savagely beaten and assaulted in the streets of Georgetown by supporters of the PNC, in full view of the Police, yet no arrests were made. These attacks, made on Indian Guyanese because they “looked like PPP supporters”, followed PNC protests against the PPP’s victory in the December 1997 elections”. As the International and EU Observer Mission wrote, “In the wake of VIOLENCE on the streets of Georgetown, CARICOM dispatched a goodwill mission to Guyana in January 1998.”
The Herdmanston Accord and constitutional reform were the poisoned fruit of PNC violence.
…racism
PNC’s James McAllister claimed if the PPP wins the election, “Guyana could expect a fate like Equatorial Guinea – “where a small elite takes all the oil money and the majority remain in poverty.”
Gasp!! Isn’t this comparison “racist” according to Greenidge?