Yep…we’re being reminded that it was SEVENTY YEARS ago – May 18, 1953 – when we had the first sitting of the House of Assembly that was constituted from the April 27 elections. Before those elections, there were all sorts of restrictions to determine who could be elected to run the country and decide how the money from taxes was spent. That was a long-drawn-out process from when slaves were defined by the White governors and planters as incapable of knowing what was good for themselves!! So the planters and merchants elected members of their clique to join officials sent out from the “Mother Country” to bear the “White man’s burden” and make such decisions!!
Gradually – VERY gradually!! – the restrictions like income, land ownership, literacy in English etc, were lifted in 1950, and universal franchise was applied in the 1953 elections: everyone over 21 years old could vote. Except incarcerated criminals and imbeciles – which describes how the Whites saw the rest of us before 1953!! Most of them still do…just show up announced at their immigration counters – even with a visa – and you’ll see!!
Anyhow, the PPP had been formed in 1950, and – surprisingly, even to the leaders – they won 18 out of 24 seats!! Now everyone nowadays talks about the fact that the arch-imperialist Churchill – who was PM of Britain – suspended the constitution and threw out the new Government. He said the PPP Government was communist and – as the man who coined the term “Iron Curtain” – he wasn’t about to see the dastardly Russian commies behind the Curtain – with an ally in the British Empire! Especially since he was getting hysterical that the sun was setting on the said empire with the independence of the British Raj in 1947!!
But what was more interesting were the manoeuvres by Burnham to claim leadership of the PPP and become the Premier between winning the elections and taking their seats. He demanded “leader or nothing”!! It was a portent of what was to come!! Even though before the elections he was one of the most anti-British members of the PPP, as soon as they were ejected, he started to modify his tone and position himself as a “moderate”. The signals worked!! Even though he was a plotter by nature, having studied and lived in England, he knew firsthand how to play their game.
When the British jailed most of the top PPP execs, Burnham was left out – so that he could continue canvassing other “moderates” to stage his own coup to become a leader. The split of the PPP and the Brits and Yanks’ choice of Burnham was prefigured in 1953!!
The Greek tragedy just had to play out!! With the hero banished!!
…the new DHB
Even though they’ve moved it even further upriver, your Eyewitness sees they’re still calling the new bridge across the Demerara River, the “Demerara Harbour Bridge”. But maybe they’ll be building docks further and further upriver, so that the entire river qualifies as a “harbour”! Anyhow, your Eyewitness was pleased at the announcement that the construction HAD ACTUALLY BEGUN! Back in 2015, after sole-sourcing a design from some Dutch entity, the PNC’s Infrastructure Minister Patterson had promised he’d have a new DHB ready by 2018!!
Well, as soon as the PPP got into office in late 2020, THEIR Infrastructure Minister hit the ground running with a much more realistic plan. He announced that the new Bridge would be sited upstream, from La Grange on the West Bank to Peters Hall on the East Bank. Now, right away this caused severe conniptions in the PNC camp, since one of their financiers had already snapped up the land where Patterson’s bridge would’ve landed at Versailles.
That was a bridge too far!!
…with definitions
A Magistrate just ruled that a Minister isn’t a “public official”, which his dictionary said is “A position authorized by statute, resolution or charter to exercise part of the sovereign power of the governmental entity.”
