The PPP/C is bent upon mischief – Rohit Kanhai

The PPP/C also condemns the wide scale provocations currently being meted out to its supporters by the APNU-AFC supporters. We are aware of the many acts of the APNU-AFC coalition even at this early stage events of provocation, discrimination, and persecution are taking place. The PPP/C has established a hotline number for the public to call in and report such incidences.

(PPP/C calls for Surujbally to resign - Stabroek News on line – May 18, 2015)

We have just emerged from one of the nastiest racist campaign carried out by the PPP in the Guyana elections of 2015. And the racist campaign continues unabated with a challenge to the election results. Now allegations are being made as stated above. This is intolerable.

Of course, there will always be isolated incidents of provocation in the best of circumstances, but given the PPP’s racist campaign, it will be inevitable. But this must not be used as an excuse by the PPP to carry on its dirty work.

It is obvious that the racist campaign of the PPP continues in full swing, with the intent to create discontent in the society. This is a dangerous game.

To wage a racist campaign is playing with danger, a danger so great that the consequences, were it to get out of hand, will set Guyana back some fifty years. There will be no winners – we will all be losers. For this reason alone, the PPP must be stopped in its attempts to foment racist violence in the society.

In 1992, a tremendous battle was won against the PNC, restoring democracy to Guyana. The struggle for changes in the electoral system began in 1989 and elections were deferred to 1992 as the reforms began to take its toll on the PNC regime, leading to its removal.

The PPP welcomed the “imperialists” which restored democracy to Guyana, since they were the victors. Despite some shortcomings of the electoral system, which did not play any significant role in the results, the elections were declared free and fair.

In 2015, the very process, this time under the control of the PPP government, brought forth the removal of the PPP government after twenty-three years in power. Suddenly, the cry is that the elections were rigged. A whole conspiracy, according to the PPP, was hatched by all and sundry to remove it from office. Even the chairman of the elections commission, who is the PPP’s nominee, is now being accused by the PPP of conspiring to remove it from power.

This is a sinister move for the PPP to call on Surujbally to resign, one which the new government should not respond to immediately. To remove Surujbally is to vindicate the PPP’s claim that the elections were “rigged.” If necessary, the whole process must be re-examined to vindicate Surujbally’s role in ensuring that the election was free and fair.

There is no doubt whatsoever that there was a large racial component in the elections. This has always been the case. Nevertheless, there were enough persons who stayed away from the polls because of the intense discontent with the manner in which the PPP has governed over the past twenty-three years. The scourge of corruption played an enormous role in this. APNU, and the AFC combined attracted enough young voters to ensure that the PPP lost its majority, even though it was a very slim margin of victory.

It would appear that the PPP is intent upon waging a racist campaign from the very outset as the new government takes office, as a strategy to frustrate the possibility of a multi-racial healing of the country. Any multi-racial healing of Guyana would be the death-knell of the PPP, something the PPP is intent upon preventing.

The real intent of the PPP is to use its racist posturing to prevent the government from investigating the criminality that it was engaged in over the past twenty-three years. It knows that there is enough evidence to put many members of the PPP and their cronies into prison for many years to come. It wants to use racism to prevent justice from taking its course. This strategy of the PPP must not work.

The government must be transparent in its dealing with the PPP as it investigates the plunder of the resources of Guyana at the hands of the PPP. And it must take extra-ordinary measures to ensure that the vagabonds cannot cry “racism” as it dispenses justice to those who pillaged and plundered the national assets in their grab for the gold.

The new government embarks on a mission to make Guyana a better place for all the races of Guyana. It must not allow the PPP to divert it from this mission. But the PPP must be made to pay a price if its attempts to disrupt the nation for its selfish motives. An olive branch is not a sign of weakness, but an immense show of strength. The PPP should not use it as a fig leaf for its dirty work.

Rohit Kanhai is Editor of Caribbean Daylight, a New York-based Caribbean newspaper.