Criminal elements from Buxton

Applying pressure to the criminals? - ha!
Dear Editor,
I picked up the Stabroek News 03.01.18 and saw the headlines: “Criminals feeling the heat”, and immediately above that: “Buxton gang shoots man in head”; and didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. What a farce! The police and the army applying pressure on the criminal elements! Ha!
And the criminal elements walk into Annandale (who the police are ‘protecting’ - I’ll say nothing about our very active army), shoot a man in the head, and walk out back again.
I guess the police will next be telling us they have everything under control.
Yours faithfully,
Nikolai Jannsen

Claims of marginalisation are the smokescreen
Dear Editor,
Political parties each vie for the trust of the people and through national elections attain the seat of government. In Guyana, this competition is mainly between two political parties, the PPP and the PNC.
For almost three decades and numerous elections the PNC “attained” the seat of government. The party revelled in the “victory” brought through the electoral system. Everything was hunky-dory. But then, as tends to happen, the tide changed and another party won an election. Suddenly, the PNC became discontented with the system even though they had earlier relished its benefits. Now they find it unacceptable; a position highly duplicitous at best.
One must bear in mind, however, that the PNC once found the system advantageous simply because they found ways of illegally tampering with it to produce results in their favour; election results were acceptable then because they were rigged. Now that the system has been refined, internationally monitored, and made tamper-proof as far as humanly possible, the PNC is displeased and find it difficult to accept the results.
Most political parties would see an electoral loss as a sign that the party’s policies are lacking in something, that it is missing some vital essence, causing a large portion of the electorate to shy away from it. To lose an election is simply to win a vote of no confidence. The message is that you have work to do.
Rather than use this time to enlarge its support base and expound its virtues, the PNC engineered a campaign of strife and division. As expected by all, except perhaps PNC leaders, this resulted in further alienating the 8% or so of the population needed by the party to honestly earn the seat of government.
But the PNC is not accustomed to making amends; it is more adept at heaping contempt on the will of the people. So the party decides not to develop the requisite skills to win the electoral game, rather they are trying to change the rules of the contest.
The ruse is called “power sharing” or “inclusive governance” and it is advanced through the campaign of social strife and racial division. Some people, scared of the PNC’s policies when it was in power and now terrified of its tactics in the opposition are crying, “Here, Mr. Bully, just take whatever you want but please, please don’t beat up on us anymore.”
Power sharing will fail, anything involving an unrepentant and unreformed PNC will fail. Claims of marginalization and discrimination are the smoke-screen behind which lurks the true motive for power sharing: the delusion of PNC paramountcy, which coincidentally is the essence of its self-defeat.
Make a note of those who believe it best to satisfy the lust for power rather than stand up for the principles of democracy and the discipline of politics, practised ethically. You will have these people to thank for the chaos inherent in power sharing.
If the PNC wants power it must clean up its act and find civilized and moral ways of attracting the small amount of the population it needs to win an election. Power sharing, as presented in Guyana, is nothing more than another form of “partitioning”.
Yours faithfully,
Lutchman Gossai