The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) in a release yesterday responded to what it termed “Minister Nandlall’s most recent invective” against the Association.
According to the statement, the minister’s tirade may have been “triggered” by the GHRA’s proposal that electoral problems in Guyana run deeper than the “mayhem and turmoil” associated with the 2020 elections. It added that the social media news service, Newsroom, reported that Nandlall had questioned the membership, financing and political orientation of the GHRA.
In response the GHRA offered that the “flimsiness of his allegations” did not merit a reply since there was sufficient information in the public domain to dispel the allegations. It pointed out that “the results of GHRA elections are issued in press releases; GHRA modest accounts are audited; the GHRA Board comprises a majority of persons under thirty years of age,” while adding that such “vigilance” has served the GHRA well against “malicious attacks from disgruntled politicians and journalists” since its inception over forty years ago.
The release also opined that what was significant about the minister’s attack was what it revealed about the prevailing attitude to civic organisations. It cited four releases from the Association over the 2020 period of electoral unrest and surmised that perhaps these did not sufficiently vilify APNU, the major Opposition Party. It was also recalled that those releases focussed on calling on the GECOM Chair to use her “ample” powers to issue a casting vote and bring the whole “fiasco” to an end.
The GHRA perspective on the matter is that “presumably the criterion of dividing the sheep from the goats according to their perceived position on the 2020 elections applies to other organizations (and individuals?) as well.” It added, “This level of partisan prejudice does nothing to foster confidence in the on-going Representation of the People Act (RoPA) consultation.”
And in light of this point of view, the Association urged civic organizations not to forget that as far as electoral reform matters are concerned, “while the major parties will skirmish about details (such as RoPA amendments), their track record for fundamental reform is abysmally poor.” It also strongly suggests that the civic response to this state of affairs should be to invest time and effort in creating a strong civic position around agreed reforms as only then would meaningful civic engagement with party political sectors as a whole be possible.
