Dear Editor,

The appointment of Charles Corbin, brother of Opposition and PNCR Leader Mr Robert Corbin, to the Guyana Elections Commis-sion (Gecom), opens the latter to the accusation of nepotism. Mr Corbin’s use of his constitutional authority to give a job to a family member is no different from what the ruling PPP has been accused of over the years, and must be denounced.

According to pronouncements on public record, Mr Corbin did not receive a consensus from the entire parliamentary opposition on the appointment of his brother to the commission. Given the dynamics of Guyanese politics today, Mr Corbin’s political vulnerabilities and personal idiosyncrasies, the circumstance of using his constitutional office to appoint a family member to the Gecom, on behalf of the entire parliamentary opposition, without consensus, is superciliously self-aggrandizing and injudicious.

Are we to accept that in all of Guyana, Mr Robert Corbin could find no one but his brother, whom he deemed suitably qualified and competent to be appointed to the commission? Charles Corbin has replaced Attorney-at-Law, Lloyd Joseph, who died last year. Now that the commission has its full complement of opposition commissioners, one cannot be oblivious of the reality that there is no member of Gecom from the opposition who is an attorney-at-law.

This is a typical instance of Mr Corbin’s wishy washy approach to his responsibilities and lack of strategic political thinking. Yet, this is the gentlemen who wants to stick around as Leader of the PNCR and who continues to run the institution into the ground, while some unenlightened party leaders continue to blindly support.

I hope that the pieces can be put together again after he has finished wrecking the party.

Yours faithfully,
Rickford Burke