The head of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) Ramesh Persaud yesterday questioned the timing of APNU’s call for public protests to push for the holding of local government elections, even as Opposition Leader David Granger defended the move.
Granger said the timing is perfect because President Donald Ramotar’s adverse posture to setting a date for the polls, which have been continually delayed since 1997, represents the single most serious breach of the constitution. He also pointed out that APNU’s lobby for the elections has been ignored for nearly a year.
In an address to the nation on Thursday evening, Granger announced plans for peaceful protests as he sought to ratchet up the lobby for the run off of the polls. The announcement came after Ramotar failed to respond to an ultimatum by Granger for the naming of a date by Monday.
During his address to the nation, Granger said the Guyanese people face “a grave threat to their constitutional liberties and privileges” and observed that the time has come for all good people “to demand their inalienable right to elect the persons they want to represent them in their towns, villages and neighbourhoods.”
In announcing the start of a campaign of “lawful, orderly, peaceful public protests–including picketing, rallies and vigils–to raise public awareness of the threat to our collective rights,” Granger urged all Guyanese to join to challenge the president to hold local government elections without undue delay.
Persaud, however, was uncertain about the timing of the move. “I am not sure if the protest is well timed to add that pressure in the call for local government elections…,” he said. “We would love to have local government elections as soon as practical. However, taking into consideration the no-confidence motion and so forth, we are not sure of now,” Persaud told Stabroek News yesterday.
But Granger yesterday justified the call for protests, saying it was overdue. “This is the single most serious constitutional violation by President Donald Ramotar… his refusal to abide by the constitutional requirement to have democratic local government elections, this is the single most serious breach,” he asserted.
He said too that protests were not limited to public picketing and revealed that the campaign has already begun with his writing to the diplomatic missions here and international agencies such as UNASUR and the United Nations, among others, on the situation.
‘No mixed signals’
Granger maintained yesterday that when the AFC’s no-confidence motion comes up for debate in the National Assembly, it will have the coalition’s support but added that he would continue to press until local government elections are called and decide on a choice of which election “when that time comes.”
If the no-confidence motion against the government is passed, it would trigger the holding of fresh general elections within 90 days. Nevertheless, Granger said he did not see the positions taken by him as sending mixed signals. “We have been speaking about local government elections for the past year… it’s not these days, it’s for a full year. We made that call before there was any call for a no-confidence motion…. I don’t think these are mixed signals; these are sequential signals… one thing before the other,” he said as he reminded of the launch of APNU’s campaign at Golden Grove last year.
President Ramotar, in light of APNU’s public indication that it would support the no-confidence motion, had also questioned Granger’s demand for the setting of a date for local government polls.
Asked yesterday if APNU was preparing for general elections, Granger would only say “The APNU is getting ready for local government elections” and kept repeating this position when asked several times.
He dismissed suggestions that the coalition’s stance on local government elections was reflective of its “jostling” with the AFC’s for political space so as to not seem the weaker and less vocal of the two.
Meanwhile, Persaud said that while his the PSC has also been pressing for local government elections, resorting to public protests is “never welcomed” as a dispute resolution tool although it is within the constitutional rights of citizens. “Protests are never welcomed as a soloution by the Private Sector Commission as a way to resolve disputes… however, we believe that the citizens of Guyana have a right to protest, once done legally and once it follows the norms of what civil society expects…we encourage them to remain peaceful,” he said.
Persaud added that while he does not know why the Ramotar administration has delayed setting of a date for local government elections, the PSC eagerly anticipated the announcement as it would “love to see local government elections held.”
