Dear Editor,
It would seem that Guyana is in the grip of a hostage situation that is a precursor to a constitutional crisis. A gang of five — David Granger, James Patterson, Vincent Alexander, Charles Corbin and Desmond Trotman — is now engaged in a conspiracy to deny the people of Guyana general and regional elections that are constitutionally due by 21st March 2019.
The GECOM four have already committed a grievous act of subversion by refusing to acknowledge the 90-day election clock created by the passage of the no-confidence motion of 21st December 2018, and by voting to conduct a house-to-house registration exercise instead of instructing the secretariat to begin preparations for elections.
The four also conspired to offer patently false arguments about availability of funding for elections; need for sanitisation of the electoral list, which is valid through 30th April 2019; and timelines needed for preparation for elections. The fifth conspirator, David Granger, abdicated his clear responsibility as elected President to issue an Elections proclamation, and continues to cede responsibility for same to the Chairman of GECOM, Patterson.
The irony of five geriatrics (all are well past 70 years old) holding to ransom a country supposedly populated by youth is all but lost in the muddied partisan waters. Granger, who makes a practice of willful ignorance and an appearance of being ill-informed and ill-prepared to disguise his disregard for the Constitution, Legislature and Judiciary, now ascribes decisive authority to GECOM, which it cannot have.
The continuous erosion of principles and institutions by a President who preaches piety and practises the opposite has also eroded his own authority and has set a dangerous precedent. We can now add ‘abdication’ to the list of adjectives to describe the fallen Granger presidency; that word joins duplicitous, clueless, incompetent, corrupt, bumbling, autocratic, obtuse and self–serving in the Granger legacy lexicon.
Respectfully,
Robin Singh
