The assault on Guyana’s democracy continues unabated. Now daily, democratic norms are recklessly ignored or flagrantly abused. Everyday there are dictatorial impositions that deny people their rights. Dictatorship is no longer a mere threat, its presence is real. Unless Guyanese speak out now and unite to stand strong against dictatorship, the brutal consequences will become difficult to overcome. It is an insult that as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Guyana’s greatest freedom fighter, Cheddi Jagan, we are confronted with the rise of dictatorship again. Cheddi gave his life to fight against and defeat dictatorship. Yet as we pay tribute to him on his 100th birth anniversary, we start another fight against the evils of dictatorship.
We see just in the past few three examples of the authoritarian disposition that now engulfs Guyana. First is the continuing assault on freedom of the press. Two columnists of the Guyana Chronicle, the Government mouthpiece, were sacked. Both of them are friends of the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (AFC/APNU) Administration. But both of them, each with about 40 years of political activism, have occasionally dared to criticise the Government. The thin-skinned dictators could not stand for such criticism and decided to stamp their authority. The Board of the Guyana Chronicle admitted that they had no say in that decision. The Editor boldly stepped forward and took responsibility. Yet we all know that he was merely following instructions from higher up. This is classical dictatorship, stifling the freedom of the press.
Second is the behaviour of the Mayor of Georgetown. She unilaterally averted a debate on a motion of no-confidence moved by Councillor Sherod Duncan and seconded by Deputy Mayor Lionel Jaikaran. The motion was for the Council of the Municipality of Georgetown to express no-confidence against the Town Clerk, Royston King, who has served as Town Clerk as if he is the Emperor of Georgetown. The Mayor dismissed the motion on the basis of a “legal advice” she received from a lawyer who happens to be the husband of a People’s National Congress (PNC) Councillor. No one requested the advice and the movers of the motion were never told that the Council would seek legal advice.
According to the advice from the lawyer, a former Magistrate, Maxwell E Edwards, the “motion, if passed in its present form would be otiose, nugatory, incompetent, and effectual and of no legal effect (an exercise in vain)” for a number of reasons. One of the reasons cited was that according to the law, “a Town Clerk cannot be disciplined by the City Council, but only by the Local Government Commission of the LGCA [Local Government’s Commission Act] which by Ministerial Order (as gazetted) became operations on 23 October, 2017.”
The problem is that the motion was not one that demanded disciplinary action or that called for dismissal of the Town Clerk. It was simply a motion that called on the Council to debate the functioning of the Town Clerk, as performed by Royston King. Of course, once the No-Confidence Motion was approved, the Council would have then been faced with what to do with the Town Clerk. Any recommendation for disciplinary action would then have to be referred to the Local Government Commission. So the Mayor knowingly and dictatorially placed the cart before the horse. The truth is that the Councillors who are members of the PNC were under instructions to ensure they did not act against the Town Clerk.
The third example is despicable. An executive member of the AFC and a Member of Parliament, Charandass, has called for the jailing of sugar workers who were sacked for not being able to send their children to school. Sugar workers who were terminated from their employment by APNU/AFC are suffering, struggling to feed their children and send them to school. For those children unable to attend school, it is not a choice made by their parents but the consequence of the reprehensible action taken by Charandass’ APNU/AFC Government to close sugar estates and not fully pay the workers their severance. This is the same man who stood by the side of people like Granger, Nagamootoo and Ramjattan and promised that no sugar estate would be closed and that sugar workers would be given a 20 per cent increase in wages. Now they want to jail the sugar workers for the poverty APNU/AFC has foisted on the people. This is how dictators behave and these are the norms under dictatorship.
