Saying it has continuously demonstrated its unwavering commitment for national unity and reconciliation, the main opposition PNCR yesterday accused President Bharrat Jagdeo of misleading the nation on failures to sustain cooperation, laying the blame at his feet.
“The PNCR remains convinced that Guyana will not see real development or prosperity until we as a nation treat as our national priority the resolution of our ethnically driven problems,” PNCR Executive Allan Munroe said yesterday at the PNCR’s weekly press conference. “This means that there must be meaningful and constructive dialogue and reconciliation, which leads to a new national framework for governance to replace the outdated and anachronistic system by which Guyana is now governed.” He added that if the political parties, including the PPP/C, are prepared to take Guyana on such a journey of modernization they would find in the PNCR a willing, capable and committed partner.
His comments were in response to statements made by the President at a PPP press conference held by senior executives of the PPP last Saturday. President Jagdeo said there that “… there has been no productive response from the opposition to any initiatives for political co-operation,” while slamming “detractors” of the late former President Janet Jagan for suggesting that her passing and the country’s loss provided an opportunity to reconcile.
The PNCR flat out denied the claim yesterday, with party leader Robert Corbin saying he merely indicated that it would be useful to reflect on the original ideals pursued by Mrs Jagan and other anti-colonial fighters.
Meanwhile, Munroe said it is the President’s public pandering to the baser instincts of his constituents that has been poisoning political discourse. “The PNCR is convinced that the utterances and conduct of the President are contrived to prevent the creation of an environment of trust, which he claims to believe can lead to the construction of the requisite framework for meaningful political dialogue on Guyana’s problems,” he said, drawing attention to critical remarks made by Jagdeo at Babu John recently, lambasting the opposition parties and the media.
Additionally, he noted that it is the head of state who has not been honouring his political commitments. He recalled the May 6, 2003 Communi-qué signed between President Jagdeo and Opposition Leader Robert Corbin, was intended to find solutions in the national interest. He said if the required sincere constructive dialogue and the timely implementation of agreed reforms had been sustained, the country would not have been divided by ethnic strife and hobbled by adverse economic circumstances.
He said the President displayed a proclivity for not honouring his commitments on issues like the establishment of an autonomous National Broadcasting Authority and the removal of the state radio monopoly that caused the dialogue to flounder. In this regard, he recalled Jagdeo’s commitment after his re-election in 2006 to a new political framework and said the political parties were never positively engaged, even when it was felt that a photo opportunity would impress the donor community. Further, despite the views and proposals of the opposition parties, he said, President Jagdeo has not seen the value of any meaningful national dialogue, except when national tragedies such as the two massacres last year at Lusignan and Bartica occur, which led to the convening of the National Stakeholders Forum. Unfortunately, Munroe added, the stakeholder’s initiative also remains stillborn. Jagdeo called it “an ad hoc mechanism” to deal with various issues from time to time, rather than as a permanent mechanism to replace engagements in the National Assembly, a statement which Munroe said should be explained.
