Mayor Narine unfit for his post, should demit office

Dear Editor,
We continue to watch in dismay as members of the Aubrey Norton Opposition and leading PNC Local Government officials – in municipalities and other local democratic organs that are controlled by the Opposition – continue to engage in vulgar obstructionist behaviour in an unpatriotic campaign to undermine national governance and transformation of our nation.
We witnessed this recently at Belladrum and Mocha Arcadia, now the hooliganism has come to the heart of the capital, brought by none other than Georgetown Mayor Ubraj Narine. The Mayor, who has been consistently neglecting his duties to run the country’s capital in a responsible and efficient manner, is now physically joining his PNC comrades in illegal attempts to obstruct the actions of the Central Government. This past Monday night, the nation witnessed a most despicable demonstration of irresponsibility by Mayor Narine, as he threw himself bodily in the path of government vehicles which were executing a legitimate operation to clear illegal structures from the vicinity of the Georgetown Public Hospital.
The Mayor, who has abandoned his duties to maintain good order and functional efficiency across the municipality he controls, is now seeking to prevent the Central Government from doing what he is failing to do. Not only did the Mayor become one of the obstructionists in Georgetown that night, but he also chose to engage openly in a vile attack on President Dr. Mohammed Irfaan Ali and the State, with unfounded accusations of racism in the handling of the illegal structures’ removal exercise, coupled with the most irresponsible religious hate utterances heard in this country since independence.
The Mayor, who is a practising Hindu Pandit, used a live streaming social media platform to sow seeds of religious hate among a very tolerant and harmonious religious Guyanese community. His decrying of the President’s religious faith as being antithetical to the Guyanese society, and his accusations of the imposition of a Muslim state on the Guyanese people by President Ali were most despicable and highly unacceptable for any elected official.
Guyana has long enjoyed, and boasted of having, one of the most tolerant, multi-religious societies in the world, with governments and politicians across the political divide treating the issue of religious tolerance among Guyanese as a sacrosanct non-political issue.
Mayor Narine’s attempt to breach the public peace through incitement of religious intolerance and hate among Guyanese is wholly unacceptable, is a dereliction of his sacred public office, and is an offence against the State and people of Guyana. We therefore demand unequivocally that Mayor Ubraj Narine apologise to the President and citizens of Guyana, withdraw his religious hate pronouncements, and resign his position as Mayor of Georgetown forthwith.
Mayor Ubraj Narine is unfit for his post, and should demit office!

Sincerely,
Association for
Democracy and
Human
Rights