Bat and ball parties
Kaieteur News – The kid, who, after being put out, ends the game by getting up and walking away with his bat and ball, is not an uncommon occurrence at all. Any person who spent hours playing ‘bats and balls’ would have encountered such an experience at one time or another.
Refusing to accept his dismissal is considered cheating. Raising his mat and ball ends the game.
Democracy is not a game of bats and balls. But the similarities are no different. The fraudster decides that he cannot accept the decision and therefore tries to eliminate the whole game.
This was suggested by one leading light in the WPA during the 2020 elections. He entered the contest as a one-sided candidate. When it did, it did not express the view that the elections would have been divisive. But as soon as the party to which she belonged lost the elections, she decided it was time to scrap the contest – throw away the votes and negotiate a result.
But if his party had won the elections, the elections would not have needed to be scrapped. That is, the credibility of the elections would not be possible unless the results were in favor of his side.
The APNU + AFC has given Irfaan Ali a third season. Given what the APNU + AFC did, it is unlikely that the PNCR or the AFC or the rest of the WPA are ever going to be entrusted again with political power. The suggestion of throwing away is no different than saying that the only outcome, which is important, is victory for one side. It turns elections into a one-way contest.
There was a time when the PNC, later renamed PNCR, felt that the country’s demographics were part of an ongoing conspiracy against it. Given the dominance of ethnic voting, the party felt that free and fair elections effectively meant single party rule.
But country demographics do not stay steady. And Guyana’s demographics were constantly changing, so much so that, by 2011, the PPP / C could not count on its core support to achieve a majority. As a result, the country for the first time in its history had a minority government in 2011. The demographic change, along with Jagdeo’s mistake gave the political office the passport of the APNU and the AFC.
Elections were no longer an ethnic census. The APNU + AFC coalition benefited and gained political office in 2015 through free and fair elections. Elections – free and fair – gave the PNCR and the AFC a chance to gain power.
And when these parties came to office, they seemed to have forgotten that they needed to keep the support, which had swept them to victory in 2015. Granger tried his best but was surrounded by politically motivated dogs. undamaged.
The economy was poorly handled with taxes being poured on the people. Instead of jobs, people were told to make a plantain chip. Political vendettas extended to sugar workers. The AFC, which was supposed to offset any excessive trends in the PNCR, turned in the latter’s foot stool, to the point where he had to drink his own vomit.
By the night of the election, the PNCR was in such an oppressive position that the PNCR and the AFC had different command centers.
There were people at PNCR’s Election Control Center who were there all night monitoring the returns from the polling stations. By morning, they must have known they had lost the elections. But due to separate command centers, two different narratives emerged: the PNCR said the Coalition had won the elections; the AFC claimed that the Russians had rigged the elections.
The PNCR met and thanked their impatient supporters outside the center, thereby making these supporters believe that the party had won the elections. Celebrations broke out in PNCR strongholds. But it was clear by then that the Coalition had not won the elections.
And so as the kid who picks up his bat and ball and ends the game, the Coalition tried to do the same with the elections through a spreadsheet and then a bed sheet. When that failed, he tried to end the game through electoral challenges so that the false results would stand.
Efforts to end the game went on. At one point, the PNCR gambled and lost. He felt that the CARICOM Report would provide the ammunition to revoke the elections. He actually believed that the Report would be saved. The report sank the Coalition when it described the objections, which were being made during the Recount as a fishing expedition.
According to its actions over a five-month period, the PNCR has poisoned its political chain. By now, he has almost given victory to the Irfaan Ali administration in 2025. The PNCR and the AFC can never be trusted following election game rules.
Regardless of whether these parties come with a new bat and a new ball, these parties should not be welcomed. They should not be trusted. They are humiliated and morally disqualified as participants in any democratic process.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper.)