Hamilton Green’s call to rig elections: “Interpret their silence as concurrence” – AG on Opposition’s lack of condemnation

“Interpret their silence as concurrence”, Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall has urged amid the lack of condemnation from the Peoples National Congress (PNC), the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), and the Alliance For Change (AFC) over remarks made by Hamilton Green in support of rigged elections.
Green, a former PNC General Secretary and a former Prime Minister under the Forbes Burnham Administration, suggested last Friday that election rigging be used to remove the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration from office.

Green was addressing persons gathered for the LFS Burnham Foundation’s 2024 Annual Commemorative Symposium – an event organised to commemorate the 101st birth anniversary of Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham, former PNC leader and President of Guyana, whose legacy is largely attributed to his dictatorship-style leadership and blatant rigging of several elections.

Heart of democracy
During his programme “Issues in the News”, Nandlall contended that the statements made by Green must be condemned in the strongest manner. He argued that the remarks “strike at the rule of law, they strike at the heart of democracy, they strike at the soul of our constitution, and at the soul of constitutional rule, they strike at the root of rule of law.
“It is no coincidence that Hamilton Green is saying that at Burnham’s commemorative birth anniversary and at a function arranged by the Burnham Foundation, because the history of this country records Forbes Burnham, along with sidekicks and sycophants like Hamilton Green and many others…rigged the 1968 elections, the 1973 elections, the 1978 referendum, the 1980 elections, and the 1985 elections. Burnham had died by ’85, but Desmond Hoyte, his successor, continued with the rigging. The history of this country also recorded that when Desmond Hoyte acceded to democratic reforms, after the intervention of the Carter Centre and after years and years of agitation by Guyanese and the Peoples Progressive Party and many other political parties, Hamilton Green opposed those reforms, and eventually opposed Desmond Hoyte as the leader of the PNC.
“Hamilton Green is on public record saying that Hoyte has given away the government by agreeing to those democratic reforms,” the AG reminded, while also pointing to the events that unfolded during the 2020 elections.

Among other things, Green expressed, “…It was Burnham’s wisdom which got him into office in 1964. I was General Secretary at the critical time. And if, as I told one of the groups I met [Friday] morning, if they say he rigged elections, I say we should keep rigging to save us from these devils, these bastards, these demons that we have.”
Nandlall contended, “Up to now, not a single member of the PNC has condemned these sentiments by Hamilton Green”. “The PNC, the APNU, and the AFC, they seem quite comfortable with these statements, so no one has come out yet to condemn what Hamilton Green has said. I am asking you to interpret their silence as concurrence.”
Reminding that it was the very APNU/AFC Government that passed an Act in March 2017 to allow Green to benefit from a massive pension, the Attorney General asked: “Why should Guyanese use their hard-earned money to pay him a pension that he is not entitled to?
“They passed a special Act in March 2017, the Prime Minister Hamilton Green Pension Act, to give him a special pension. You know why they had to pass an Act? Because he was not entitled to it,” he said.
The AG has since asserted that, “an Act of Parliament can be repealed by an Act of Parliament. Why should this Act not be repealed for these kinds of statements that can lead to the destruction of Guyana and its people…?”
He revealed that through this Act, Green is benefitting from taxpayers’ dollars in the amount of over $1.5 million plus other benefits per month, as per the pension plan. The Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) has since condemned Green’s statements as reckless and appalling. (G11)