Vote for restoration of constitutional rule in Guyana

Dear Editor,
In 2015, I asked the nation to vote for a change and to support the coalition of PNC and AFC as I thought they would promote national unity and change the country. Sadly, the PNC coalition broke all its promises including breaking its promises to the AFC, and it quickly squandered all the goodwill placed in it by crossover voters that caused them to win. The coalition is a dismal failure, the economy declined, unemployment increased, business is slow, they governed badly and it led to their massive defeat at the Local Government Elections in 2016 and 2018, culminating in their final defeat at the no-confidence vote in December 2018.
For 2020, the party that captures my support is the PPP. This time, I will vote for the PPP because the PNC has shown scant respect for the Guyana Constitution and democratic rule. While violating the Constitution, and squatting for a year as an illegal Government as Parliament had not extended their stay, Mr Granger glibly declared he is following the Constitution, while saying the decisions of the CJ and CCJ are their mere opinions and that he has his own opinions.
Instead of promoting healing in the nation as it promised, the PNC’s behaviour after the No-Confidence Motion showed that the PNC has not changed from its old ways of dictatorship. Although it got into Government by a one-seat majority and one-vote win in Region Eight (no recount was allowed and the PPP’s election petition was never heard), its voodoo math of 33 is not the majority of 65 and filing numerous court cases as a ploy to stay in power by hook or by crook, has left us the most divided we have ever been as a nation.
I was taken in by pictures of Mr Granger kneeling in church and thought he was a good, Christian man. Although Granger refused to renounce Burnhamism, the crossover voters were willing to give him a chance. However, once they got in, the coalition quickly were on the wrong trajectory, with instant pay increases for themselves, the D’Urban Park scandal, drug bond scandal, signing away of our national oil and gas patrimony scandal, hiding the sign-on bonus money scandal, airport scandal, bridge scandal, new Demerara Bridge study scandal, procurement scandals, and the list goes on and on.
The PNC appointed many inexperienced, low-talent, fumbling, bungling Ministers who, for most of the time, did not have a clue what they were doing. The lowest point of the PNC regime is the party Chairman saying, “Well I got news for you: The only friends I got is PNC, so the only people I could give work to is PNC. And, right now, I looking for a doctor who can talk Spanish or Portuguese and ah want one that is PNC,” (SN, Nov 13, 2018). This takes us back to the dark days of Burnhamism when “paramountcy of the party” led to a swift destruction of Guyana, until free and fair elections in 1991 ushered in the PPP as the saviour. No wonder the coalition seems unbothered by their insensitivity to diversity in hiring, awarding of scholarships, implementation of Government projects, access to training, etc.
Despite its claims to be “A Partnership for National Unity,” the PNC’s one-seat triumphalism and locking out the PPP from decision making about oil is regrettable. Neither the PPP nor PNC should think it can lock out the other in making deals and decisions about oil and gas. There has to be a broad-based National Oil Board. Refusing all advice by the IMF and international bodies, NGOs, and oil experts, the coalition is clueless, unprepared for oil, refuses to take advice from the abundance of counsel that has been proffered, and has made all the mistakes possible in selling out the national patrimony. Its biggest betrayal of the nation is instead of listening to good advice, it hardened its stance against the Global Witness report by saying the Exxon deal was a good deal, even though we stand to lose a whopping estimate of US$55 billion. From “Bookers Guyana,” we have now entered an era of “Exxon Guyana.” There goes the imagined good life for all, and the masses get larwah.
After the new national hero, Charandass Persaud voted against his own Government, the “Charandass effect” jolted the PNC coalition that they forgot the people and broke all their promises. Last-minute projects (many violating the rules as the illegal Government is in a caretaker status) were too little too late to save their poor record of failures.
While the PNC is pushing the notion that the PNC is a “Christian party” and some churches are misguidedly pushing that notion too, no serious, real Christian would say the PNC is a Christian party. It is not.
In this new era of “vote them in, vote them out,” I ask that you support the PPP as they are the only one that can match the PNC and hold them accountable. It should not be that any time the PNC is in power that you have to be fighting for the restoration of democracy. My litmus test for the 2020 election is which party is likely to observe and practice constitutional rule and obey the Constitution, and it is the PPP. It is important on March 2, that we take back the Government from the constitutional violators. If we don’t, the PNC will pull the same tricks it did in 1968-1992. We must go back to the PPP so we may go forward.

Sincerely,
Dr Jerry Jailall
USA