PPP executive member Gail Teixeira has written to Commissioner of Police Leslie James and the Chairman of the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) Reverend John Smith urging them to defend the rule of law saying that recent alleged statements by government officials are inciting and a threat to public order and safety.
In the letters released to the news media yesterday, Teixeira referred to online reports carried by the news site Demerara Waves and Daily News Guyana in the context of recent rulings by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
On Tuesday, the CCJ ruled that the December 21 no-confidence motion brought against the David Granger-led APNU+AFC administration was validly passed with the votes of 33 members of the 65-member National Assembly, thereby compelling the resignation of Cabinet and the holding of general elections. In addition, the court also ruled that the process used to unilaterally appoint Justice (Ret’d) James Patterson as Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) was “flawed” and unconstitutional.
In her letters, Teixeira highlighted the CCJ decisions and said that there is no further room for doubt and ambiguity as to what is required by the president and government at this time. However, she said that reports in the media emanating from the president and ministers are cause for concern. These statements in response to the CCJ rulings have been “unsettling and disturbing,” according to Teixeira.
She highlighted a report by Demerara Waves yesterday which quoted Minister of Finance Winston Jordan as saying at a meeting in Bartica that “Notwithstanding the ruling today and not withstanding all the consequential orders, we will be here until the elections are called and we will be at the tape when the next term begins.” Jordan allegedly added that there would be no elections until there was house-to-house registration and reportedly called on supporters to picket “no registration, no elections.”
In the same report, Teixeira wrote, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo warned that if youths are disenfranchised there would be “trouble” if the youth are not registered.
She also pointed to a report by the Daily News Guyana which quoted Jordan as saying that “war break” as the CCJ handed down its decision on the no-confidence motion. Teixeira further said that a video of the said meeting showed Nagamootoo saying that he “had put back on his olive-green shirt as he was back in battle gear, back in the battle and will not be surrendered by him.”
Teixeira wrote that these statements and declarations should be cause for profound concern by the police, the ERC and citizens.
“These statements are inciting and a threat to public order and safety and are in contempt of the Caribbean Court of Justice rulings of June 18, 2019,” Teixeira wrote.
She called on James “as Commissioner and the custodian of public safety and order to carry out your mandate vigorously and to publicly defend, preserve and protect the rule of law and the Guyana Constitution in our nation.”
Similarly, she called on the ERC to “carry out its constitutional mandate vigorously to promote peace and harmony and to stand publicly in defence of the rule of law and the Constitution.”
“I urge you to register with the President and his Ministers that the CCJ ruling must be complied with in spirit and intent,” Teixeira wrote, in her letter to Smith.
