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Bert Wilkinson
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Aug 28, 2006 - Sitting on a barstool sipping shots of vodka and tonic water, Hardat Singh says he is unsure whether he will vote in the general election set for today.
"I am fed up with the situation in Guyana -- the violence, the drugs and the difficulty young people like my daughter who graduated from university experience finding a job. It is depressing," said the Georgetown businessman.
For Singh, today's vote for the presidency, the 65 seats in the single-chamber parliament and for interior parliamentary seats could again amount to a racial referendum if voters stick to their traditional pattern, with East Indians predominately siding with the governing People's Progressive Party (PPP) and Afro-Guyanese going for the main opposition People's National Congress (PNC). The two have dominated politics for the past 60 years.
Singh says his 21-year-old daughter is contemplating a vote for the nine-month-old multiracial Alliance For Change (AFC), which has received generous financial backing from the Guyanese diaspora in Canada and the United States. The party is also supported by Western nations anxious to change the political fortunes of this former British colony, blighted by racial divisions and strife which have retarded the development of a nation rich in timber, gold, diamonds, rice, sugar and bauxite.
Western diplomats say they hope the AFC would significantly reduce the power of the PPP -- which is now seeking a fourth consecutive term -- owing to the high levels of corruption, its closeness to the burgeoning narco-trade and its seeming inability to reduce violent crime in the South American nation.
A poll late last month for the Stabroek News placed found the PPP to be leading with 42 percent, while the PNC had 29 percent and the new AFC 13 percent.
Komal Chand, a PPP legislator and labour leader, says his" party has no sympathy for drug dealers and money launderers. We want the police and military to go after them. There is no doubt about that. We are not into the drugs thing."
The issue has dominated campaigning, with the PNC and the AFC in particular hammering the administration for publicly defending a high-profile drug dealer who was recently indicted in the U.S. and flown to New York to stand trial for international trafficking.
Shaheed Roger Khan, 35, boasted in press releases while on the run from Guyanese law enforcement that he used his "own resources and will" to protect the East Indian-dominated PPP from criminals and from armed Black activists who were plotting to topple the administration.
Critics say a denial by the government would have been largely been fruitless as Western embassies like Canada and the United States have already started taking action against officials known to be close to the drug trade. More indictments of high-profile businessmen and even politicians are expected in the coming months, according to US officials.
Late last month, acting Police Chief Henry Greene, 52, lost his travel visa to the US.
In 2004, then chief Floyd McDonald and his family lost theirs, as did Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj, for their part in hiring or turning a blind eye to hit squads controlled by drug dealers who hunted down and killed at least 40 criminal suspects during an unusual crime wave in Guyana. Until then, 50 murders a year made headlines -- but not anymore.
The government has publicly said it had to take unusual steps to stem the violence as more than 20 law enforcement officers were killed during that period and officers "were demoralised."
As further evidence of where the country is headed, the U.S. State Department in its annual report in March said that the narco-trade accounts for up to 60 percent of economic activity in Guyana.
University of Guyana political scientist Freddie Kissoon says a country earns the title of "mini narco-state" when drugs account for over 50 percent of the economy -- in which case, Guyana has already surpassed that designation.
"That's where we are now. There is no doubt about it," said Kissoon, who is also a newspaper columnist.
Other key campaign issues also relate to drugs, particularly multiple murders by gangs hired for hits by drug cartels or controlled by them to protect their businesses.
Earlier this month, gunmen killed five printers at the Kaieteur News newspaper, the most popular daily. The workers were made to lie on the cement floor and were then shot in the back of their heads, and the unprecedented attack on a media house shocked this nation of 730,000 more than any of the gangland slayings that have plagued the country since 2002. International condemnation poured in. Police have made some arrests in the case.
President Bharrat Jagdeo has promised a major overhaul of the police force if he wins, saying he would use a 20-million-dollar loan from the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) to computerise and re-equip the force.
Manzoor Nadir, his tourism minister, says "crime and security is the number one issue facing Guyana and it is everyone's concern".
Jagdeo, 43, is coming up against attorney Robert Corbin, 56, of the PNC, and Raphael Trotman, a 39-year-old attorney, of the AFC.
Trotman's upstart party has been singled out for brutal attack on the campaign trail by the PPP, with speakers accusing it of receiving funding "from a hidden hand" -- meaning the United States.
It wants the country to attract greater levels of investment than has been the case, while the PNC has been harping on the drug issue, corruption in government circles and the plight of youth, joblessness and hopelessness, as Hardat Singh pointed out.
The country's economic fortunes have sagged in recent years, with growth averaging about one percent compared to a healthy seven percent in the 1990s. Jagdeo has pointed to the significant reduction of the national debt by 500 million dollars thanks to write-offs and restructuring by western nations and to major improvements to the infrastructure, housing, roads, power plants, water and new hospitals springing up the country.
Still, polls are showing that the AFC could do well, even becoming the parliamentary spoiler in the race. To avoid a weak government, Jagdeo has asked for 60 percent and wants the party to evolve from its Indo-Guyanese base.
The final voters' list has a tally of 492,000 eligible voters, in a country of a mere 730,000 people and with a school-age population of more than 230,000 -- numbers that just don't add up, some observers have pointed out.
- Copyright IPS 2006. Reprinted with permission
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