President David Granger yesterday stopped short of saying whether he will run again for the presidency at the 2020 general elections, while noting that he would not “run away” from service.
“I would say, ‘Who knows?’” Granger said when first asked by Stabroek News whether he would seek to run in 2020.
“I cannot answer the question at the present time. It is speculative but I am a servant of my party, I am a servant of the partnership and I am a servant of the coalition and my duty is to serve and I would not run away from service,” he added, when asked whether he would accept a nomination were he to receive it.
Since the recent People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) congress, where Granger was unchallenged as leader of the party and Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence was elected party Chairman—effectively the deputy leader—there has been much public speculation about whether she would be the person to the succeed him.
Granger will be 75 in 2020.
On February 14th, 2015, following weeks of negotiations, Granger’s APNU and the Alliance For Change (AFC) signed an agreement – the Cummingsburg Accord – which saw the two parties uniting under a single banner for the May 11th general elections. The coalition named Granger as its presidential candidate and AFC member Moses Nagamootoo as the prime ministerial candidate.
Then, the AFC had expressed its confidence that Granger was the best person to take the coalition to a win in 2015. “Whilst we will contest this election on issues not personalities, I have no doubt in my mind that the APNU+AFC alliance will be victorious and that David Granger will be Guyana’s next President. I have every reason to feel that as President, David will be just and fair, and that he will put Guyana first, that he would help to restore our beloved country to the place of respect and dignity in the Caribbean and in the rest of the world,” Nagamootoo had said then.
Granger yesterday referred to how he had been chosen in 2015, saying that it was through a democratic selection process of the coalition but he added that he could not say now what the processes would be for 2020.
“I became presidential candidate as a result of a democratic process. I became leader of A Partnership for National Unity and I became the presidential candidate leader of the coalition, so there were several steps. I am now leader of the People’s National Congress and I have to bear in mind that my elevation to the presidency is as a result of popular support, as a result of democratic processes. I will not abandon those processes. Once those processes function I will observe them, but at present I cannot say what the outcome of those processes might be,” he added.
