One step forward…

…into a pit
(Caretaker) President Granger finally met with Opposition Leader (OL) Jagdeo to start the process of “hammering out” the selection of the new GECOM Chair – now that the illegally appointed James Patterson has been consigned to join previously discredited Chairmen like Hillary Bollers in the dustbin of history. That’s a step forward, albeit a baby step. After all, the term “hammering out” is very evocative, since it accurately reflects what’s going to happen over the next few days; analogous with beating a piece of metal until it becomes flat!!
That’s a whole lotta hammering!! Trust your Eyewitness, the process ain’t gonna be easy!! But it should have been since the OL threw the (Caretaker) President a lollypop when he accepted even before the meeting that he was open to the latter making SUGGESTIONS on names he found acceptable. This move suggested that the OL saw the process as hammering swords into ploughshares, but your Eyewitness hopes the OL isn’t holding his breath. He might just asphyxiate!!
The PNC knows only one way to play politics – as a continuation of war by other means!! And with Caretaker Granger, his Director General and his insider staff all from the Disciplined Forces, that shouldn’t be very hard: all they know is war!! Did you see the Caretaker put on his game face at his Press Conference right after the Jagdeo meeting? Did you hear him still insisting he’s always complied with the Constitution?? Yep!! Even after his GECOM pick was nixed by the CCJ!!
The OL revealed that he’ll start the hammering with names from the previous three lists who are still available to make up his six. Now, since these were all rejected by Caretaker Granger before, your Eyewitness doesn’t see him changing his mind now, since this would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had Patterson in mind from the word go and wasn’t prepared to follow the constitutional rules of the game.
Your Eyewitness, therefore, sees a phase two in which there will be the need for a second list, but he hopes the OL isn’t trusting enough to include any names the Caretaker might’ve suggested. These will definitely be Manchurian Candidates – sleepers to be “awakened” on the night of the elections!! But if the Caretaker President rejects this list, the CCJ has ruled he’ll have to give reasons for doing so. And from his truculence at his Presser, he ain’t giving no reasons!!
And we’ll be back at square one – at least until next Friday when the CCJ will hand down its consequential orders!!
The only question left, of course, is how will they enforce those orders?!!

… two steps backwards
After the baby step forward, there were at least two steps backwards plunging us into a yawning chasm of a return of a possible PNC dictatorship. Even after the CCJ had conclusively ruled that since the NCM was validly passed – and the President and Cabinet stood resigned by Art 106 (6) – the Caretaker President convened his Caretaker Cabinet with his Caretaker Director General – who’d been ousted as Minister of State of the Ministry of the Presidency – giving a briefing on “Cabinet’s” decisions!!
Even when the High Court had ruled as the CCJ was to later confirm, Granger and his crew described their meeting as a “Caucus”. Now they couldn’t even be bothered with that fig leaf – though they said they “noted” contracts submitted to them rather than “approved”. This eyepass was in line with the other one where they assured the Guyanese people that possession of less than 30 grams of ganja was not subject to imprisonment.
The PNC’s again insisting it’s not only an unfettered Executive, but the judiciary and the legislature!!

…and three backward
Remember when the “Common Entrance Test” was changed into the “National Grade Six Assessment”?? So what’s happened to the promise that the “assessment” would be used to remedy identified deficiencies later down the pike??
Gone fuh channa?