The opposition PPP yesterday denounced charges against its former Housing Minister Irfaan Ali over the Pradoville Housing Scheme as “trumped up” and stated that authoritarianism is being taken to another level.
Ali was intercepted in the city early yesterday morning and later charged with 19 counts. He later appeared in the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court and was placed on self-bail. He was not required to plead.
In a statement yesterday, the PPP said that the charges against Ali have been dangling for over two years and their institution a few days before the national budget debates begins and a planned No-Confidence Motion is no coincidence.
It said that the modus operandi of the arrest of Ali, says it all.
“A vanload of Policemen turned up at his house at 4:00 am, arrested him and took him to the Headquarters of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU).
“Irfaan Ali attended SOCU’s office on every occasion he was requested to do so over the last year. So, there was no need for the show of power. But, this is the PNC back in form”, the party declared.
It said that authoritarianism is being taken to another level.
“We are not oblivious to the fact that these charges are intended to tarnish our leaders in order to impact the choice of the PPP’s presidential candidate for the 2020 General and Regional Elections. This plan will also not succeed”, the party stated.
Freedom House added: “No doubt, greater pressures will be mounted, more charges will be filed and more agencies of the State will be directed to target our leadership, in order to break our spirit and intimidate our supporters. However, it will succeed only in making us stronger and even more determined to lead and unite, not only our supporters, but every fair, law abiding and patriotic Guyanese, irrespective of class, race or religion in an indefatigable movement…”Several senior members of the party also questioned the timing of the arrest.
“The message we want to send very clearly to the government is that this will be met with lawful but equal force. So this kind of oppressive behaviour that the government is engaging in right now, which is to charge and/or lock up members of the opposition [and] attempt to intimidate members of the opposition by doing these kinds of actions, that it is not going to work,” attorney Priya Manickchand said.
At the time, she was updating the media outside the Camp Street office of SOCU where Ali was still being questioned by investigators. Manickchand was one of four attorneys who turned up to provide legal presentation to Ali.
A smiling Ali, who showed the thumbs up to the media, left the SOCU office around 10:30am.
Manickchand said that Ali is a “patriot. He is known to Guyana. He is an executive of the People’s Progressive Party. He has been touted as one of the possible presidential candidates for the People’s Progressive Party. He is set to be begin the budget debates from the Opposition benches and as we know him to be, he is characteristically going to demolish the fluff that has been placed in the budget.”
She said that the party believes that the arrest is a direct response to a budget that has received “very poor excitement responses” from the population and is a direct response to a PPP/C no-confidence motion that has excited the population.
She said that she asked the officers at SOCU the reasoning behind a 4 am arrest and noted that the threats of charges have been made since government took office. “What on earth made it necessary to swoop down on somebody’s residence at 4 o clock in the morning?” she said while adding that “we have said before that the state is becoming more and more oppressive. It is becoming the kind of police state that every citizen must rise up against because every citizen is in jeopardy of rights taken away from them .”
The attorney opined that something else is happening in the government and the arrest of the MP is being used as a distraction. “Something very big. Something very significant. Something that is probably going to affect the population of this country and that is being hidden from us. They are trying to distract us from that…This is just a circus. This is theatrics. Nobody is afraid of this.”
She said that the PPP and the “rights loving” people of Guyana will stands with Ali. She said too that the opposition will not stop representing the people of Guyana with “passion and with force.”
Further she said “We ask the people that they stand with us as we resist this kind of oppression behaviour from a government who sees itself slipping out of office every single day that goes by.”
Timing
Former Attorney General Anil Nandlall, who also represents Ali told reporters that he has gotten no indication that other persons would likely be charged in relation to Pradoville 2.
According to Nandlall, he had predicted this long now and noted that “the timing of it is very essential. We are about to start our budget debate, we have a no confidence motion that is pending in the House.”
He pointed out that the Pradoville issue, has been in the air for about two or three years. “…[Ali was] never charged before [and] now at this very crucial point in time when he is to speak Monday in the National Assembly and when the no confidence motion is pending, suddenly a jeep load of policemen…descends upon his house. These are not normal occurrences. These speak to a premeditated and orchestrated attempt to target PPP leaders including myself, to destroy our credibility or attempt to destroy our credibility and also to immediately remove one of us from the political configuration,” he said.
He told reporters that he would not discount the significance of the local government elections. “In my view the PPP machinery is working too smoothly and all things being equal the PPP is expected to be the next government so attempts are now made to derail that expectation and that eventuality and what you are seeing now is a manifestation of that, ” Nandlall said.
Nandlall stressed that Ali is in Guyana all the time and is a public figure, “attending parliament, being seen everywhere.” He said that these charges were on the cards for a long time and Ali has made no attempt to flee or avoid arrest even though, “he has the ability to do so, if he really wanted.”
Meanwhile opposition MP Juan Edghill who also turned up to support Ali warned that the party will not allow government to control the choosing of the party’s next presidential candidate.
“So if this is …hatched somewhere … to determine who gets consideration for the presidential candidate or not, they are making a big, big mistake. So whether they go after Anil Nandlall, they go after Irfaan Ali, they go after Frank Anthony or they go after any other name that is mentioned as a presidential candidate, SOCU the Attorney General, the Minister of State, the Leadership of Congress Place will not determine the presidential candidate,” he said.
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