President Donald Ramotar yesterday shot down accusations by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) that his party was misusing state resources for elections campaigning, before questioning whether his ministers are expected to abandon their government vehicles and walk.
“So what you want us to do, walk? You want the ministers to go and walk?” he said in answer to a question from Stabroek News on the opposition objecting to state resources such as vehicles being used by the government for electioneering purposes.
The president was at the time addressing additional questions from members of the media shortly after the conclusion of a press conference at State House to address the dissolution of Parliament and the holding of general elections.
The issue was first raised at the APNU weekly press conference on Friday during which opposition leader David Granger and party members Amna Ally and Winston Felix, all registered their disagreement with the manner in which the Ramotar administration was embarking on their elections campaign. The campaign was described as “dirty” and as representing the PPP’s latest attempt to secure a win in the upcoming general elections.
There have been reports that the president had used the army Skyvan to attend a number of meetings in Amerindian villages within the past two weeks. In response to this Granger said that the president cannot be using state resources for political party campaigning. He alluded to a previous occasion where India’s prime minister appeared before the court charged with using state resources for political campaigning. He said, “If he is going as Minister of Defence, if he is going as President of the country no one can prevent him… but it is clear that since the Babu John declaration the PPP is in clear campaign mode. They have been brushing everything else aside, including local government elections.”
In a prepared statement, he told the press that the PPP has launched a “dirty, divisive and dangerous campaign on the approach of general and regional elections.”
In addition to the misuse of state resources, he also spoke of unfair spending.
He contended that the PPP has been “unfairly spending state resources in certain targeted communities in order to win their votes at the forthcoming elections.” He said several ministers have been spending state funds at a phenomenal rate in order to “buy” votes. He noted that the Minister of Local Government and Regional Development unilaterally launched a multi-million dollar ‘Clean-up My Country’ programme; the Minister of Amerindian Affairs has been presenting villages with school uniform material; the Minister of Education waited over six months to start disbursing the $10,000 grant promised to the families of schoolchildren; and the Prime Minister and junior Finance Minister have been lavishing netbooks (laptop computers) in several rural communities.
Granger in an invited comment yesterday told Stabroek News that for the last two decades or more the PPP has become accustomed to using state resources. “This is not a level playing field,” he said, while explaining that the opposition doesn’t have access to resources such as the Government Information Agency (GINA) and the other communications media. He stressed that the PPP had an “unfair advantage” in using state funds for party work.
“When he used the plane, he is going there not as President but as PPP candidate and that is the difference,” he said, adding that “if he wants to be fair let Ramjattan use the army plane too.”
The APNU on Friday had also charged that the ruling party has been preventing the holding of local government elections and preparing for general and regional elections by indulging in “fear-mongering, race-baiting, vote-buying and lying.”
Asked yesterday specifically about “race baiting,” Ramotar responded, “Absolute nonsense.”
Told that the opposition party had mentioned specific cases in the Berbice area he replied, “that is totally not true. I think that they are fishing. I think that they probably realize that they are losing ground and they are trying to find a way…”
It has since been decided that the APNU chief whip Amna Ally will be the person making a complaint to the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) about the PPP’s behaviour and their elections practices.
