Coil: From Lante’n Post to City Hall

by Vidyaratha Kissoon

“What should I wear?” the candidate called to ask.

It was a nice breezy afternoon – around 5pm. The DYC lawns were dry in the El Nino.   A resident of Subryanville had an idea to invite the First Past the Post Candidates for Constituency No 2 : Kitty North, Central & South and Subryanville to have an interaction. Other residents agreed and the meeting was organised. The intention was to hold the meeting in the evening and to finish before it got too dark.

The first person arrived before 5pm. She said she did not know the candidates even though the elections were a week away.  Only two of the five candidates had pasted up their flyers on the lante’n (lantern/lamp?) posts in the area. An independent candidate in another constituency had talked about the cheese required to run the campaign. The journey to City Hall/NDC Office/Parliament starts with the lante’n post. A young candidate in another constituency had made a comment about how the image of one of his competitors was an old one, “from 1992” and that it was a sign of the candidate’s lack of transparency. I am not the only person who studies the flyers on the lante’n posts.

And so it was that the meeting in Subryanville was convened.

A candidate in another Region had said that in the end, it is all a flam because the Minister and big boys could override anything that the NDC could do. This might or might not be true. But even if I am cynical about the outcome, I got involved in the process because it was a nice thing to do.

Dog saliva
One person took on the task to invite the candidates. We knew where one lived. Thanks to GECOM for publicising everyone’s ID number, name and address – it was easy to find addresses. Another candidate in another constituency had educated me though.. that there is a difference where a person sleeps, and where they are registered to vote. I know I was confused about a few candidates who seemed to be in two places at once. The equivalent irrelevance would be a consideration of the dual citizenship status of people who benefit from the nice meals and duty free cars in the National Assembly.

Invitation flyers were printed. I took on the task of distribution as part of my community-minded-civic- citizen-patriotic-nationbuilding-hope-to-get-to-heaven duty.  And I was helping not one, but all of the candidates by enabling some campaigning. My democracy halo was shining bright.

I am not a dog lover, unlike many of the residents in the community. The dogs seemed to know this.

One dog was close to the gate as I searched for its owner’s letter box. I felt the splash of dog spit on my legs. That mark might have enraged other dogs, who regardless of size, all barked at me with suspicion. Some people have their letter boxes hidden –  in some cases, the more hidden the letter box, the more interested the dogs were with me.

No wonder, the lante’n post is the easier path to democracy than one on one engagement with letter boxes and dogs.

I am in double awe of the Jehovah Witnesses who had been delivering flyers before I started.  I had to push my flyer in after theirs. I wondered about the contrast – the nice colourful flyers inviting people to pray and talking about love and so, as against  the stark black and white flyer reminding people of politics and its divisiveness.

I wonder if the dogs were more friendly to them than to me.

One or two persons asked if I was going up for LGE. No way, it was bad enough having the image of my face deteriorate daily in the mirror much less watching it fade on a lante’n post.

The gathering
The people were gathering in the evening cool. There is always this anxiety that nobody will come.  The first candidate to arrive was Mr Rasul from Team Benschop for Mayor. He wore orange and came with campaign materials. The second candidate to arrive was Mr Park, from Healing the Nation Theocracy Party. He wore white, and also had campaign materials.  We had agreed that it was okay for candidates to wear colours and share pamphlets, even with each other. My only hope that there was not going to be any fighting.

Earlier in the day, I had been at the vigil for Courtney Crum-Ewing. There were many candidates who were there as the Guyana Chronicle reported. I was relieved that it was possible for candidates to be in the same place  without any fights or so.

The media arrived. I was anxious too that we had an event worth reporting. The idea was to encourage other communities to meet their candidates.  Stabroek News had already done a coverage of the candidates.

I had explained that this was not going to be a ‘debate’.The  cameraman asked if we did not have a better  backdrop for the head table. A white tablecloth with lacy fringe was proposed. The cameraman was okay with the existing one.

There was an idea that a draw would be to get the order of speakers. We found a paper bag, I put ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3” on separate pieces of paper. Mister Park and Mr Rasul drew their numbers. The remaining number ‘1’ was given to the APNU+AFC candidate Mr Goring when he  arrived. He explained that he thought it was going to be 5:30pm. There had been a mix up about his invitation letter. He was dressed in a tie, after work, dark colours, no obvious party allegiance.

We got started. The only person with a slight objection to my being the moderator was me. I had seen guidelines for a moderator for another debate. There were guidelines like “Don’t react, by your facial expression or gestures, to anything that happens during the debate.”.

There was an explanation that the GECOM public education team was in Berbice. A resident had collected brochures from GECOM about voting and shared out.

A man came in on a bicycle. He was stocky, wearing a hat, light yellow shirt, tie and waistcoat. Straight backed on the bicycle. No-nonsense face. He reminded me of Mr Richardson, Woodwork teacher at Bishops who rode to school with hat on head and tie during Burnham years and no-nonsense face .

A candidate said “ Look, Mr Cromwell is here”.

I only knew Mr Cromwell , the only Independent candidate,  by reputation: he has been charged for assaulting Iqbal Rahim.

Mr Rahim was among the citizens in the front seat. He was wearing an orange shirt like the one Mr Rasul was wearing.

The organisers had tried to contact the PPP Candidate, but she never responded.  I was secretly relieved because that meant that a possible point of contention was removed. It would have been a challenge to suppress and deal with questions like ‘why yall contesting when yall aint had LGE for 20 years’, ‘why yall got slap-and-strip-bheri and other men who get reporting for beat women running for government’ and those kinds of questions.  Those questions would have come from me.

There were other supporters of the candidates in the audience.

The candidates were each given 10 minutes to outline their plans. The candidate who had number ‘1’ said, perhaps since Mr Cromwell came in last he should go first. I thought “Ow lard, disis going to be difficult, what do I do, what do I do.  I am in control here.., dis ting like it bruk up before it start”

Mr Cromwell came to my rescue and said “No problem, I will go first.. “

Mr Cromwell spoke about the cleaning of drains, rehabilitation of Farnum Playground, Kitty Market, finding work for the youth. He said he was concerned about youth, the children around him call him ‘Uncle Bull’.  He wanted the Kitty Health Centre to be accessible for more hours, especially for the elderly.  He referred to being hasty and emotional at times.

The next candidate, Mr Goring spoke of Subryanville and Farnum Playground. The issues of drainage. He talked about ageism and discrimination against the elderly, especially in public transportation.  Most of the persons in the audience were older citizens.

He said there was an advantage in having APNU+AFC at local government since he intended to make sure that Central Government issues could be resolved. The President and APNU at least seem to be on the LGE campaign trail too, so could be true that voting for the APNU+/-AFC candidate is a connection to the President.

Mr Park opened by saying that he would not take long because he had no lies to tell. He talked about love and so. I know, this love thing is not easy. I am guilty at not being too bothered at the absence of the PPP candidate.

He spoke about the need for community employment, especially for the disadvantaged. He went on to speak about the herb which is medicinal and illegal – the Healing the Nation Theocracy Party has been concerned about the legalisation of ganja.

One or two persons in the audience were signalling me ‘time time’ time and I was trying to stare at them, and mouth words like.. ‘no no, the man still has time’ and hope that the TV camera was not recording me doing that.

Mr Rasul read from the manifesto for Georgetown and he honed in on the issues he found for the area. He talked of the Kitty Market , drainage and cleanliness in the area, the restoration of Farnum Playground.

The Q & A period was easy to moderate. The questions flowed. Some issues are beyond local government. The reports from the Guyana Chronicle and the Stabroek News have more details.

The breeze was still nice, and sun had already set and the night set in.  I sent a message to get the neighbour to turn on the bright lights which would shine over in DYC.

A candidate whispered ‘Is it time for closing remarks?”. I resumed control and whispered “just now, .. let’s have one or two more questions”

The event finished quietly.

It was nice to see the candidates shake hands with one another.

I haven’t decided who to vote for though, or whether to vote at all. I hope that other communities and constituencies are able to organise similar interactions. Once people move from the lante’n posts to City Hall/NDC Office it might not be so easy to get hold of them.