Dear Editor,
I recently read a letter penned by Dr Henry Jeffrey captioned ‘A PPP constitution not a PNC one’ in the Stabroek News and was utterly dismayed when he had the gall to put the PPP and the PNC in the same basket. This politician had the opportunity to gain benefits from both sides of the political divide and is doing it again. He is talking from the other side of his mouth that the constitution is an orchestration of the PPP. What nonsense!
The PNC finally solidified its illegal stranglehold on power in 1980 with the ushering in of the Burnham constitution. I vividly remember the 1980 campaign of “Vote for the house and not the mouse,” a horrible display of bullyism over the opposition PPP. That referendum was a vote by PNC supporters only because the majority stayed away from the polls, yet Burnham could boast of having 100% support for his constitution. So we were saddled with that draconian constitution which gave sweeping powers to the president, among other things. Burnham’s constitution was modified after the PPP/C came to office to make it more workable and people friendly. That’s the PPP constitution Dr Jeffrey is talking about. He is insinuating that the PPP/C having made changes to the laws of this country must now take ownership of everything. And that everything means that it should have drafted a constitution where the opposition, moreso the PNC/APNU would still have the upper hand in power, similar to the situation in Parliament right now.
At the end of the day it was the PPP/C government that modified the constitution so that the PNC/APNU could have some say in the way government is run. Previously, the opposition had no say, no relevance whatsoever in the run of things here. But Dr Jeffrey can suffer from amnesia in his discourse on this now.
Yours faithfully,
Neil Adams