It is sad to say that the Global Witness report, “Signed Away,” analysing EEPGL’s (the ExxonMobil controlled Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited) agreement with Guyana and the damning circumstances leading up to its signing, will not influence the vote of more than a handful of people, if so many, at the elections on March 2.
A number of new parties have created electoral history in Guyana by, for the first time, joining together to form a combination of lists whose votes shall be combined to determine the number of seats they will collectively obtain.
On Friday last, 13 political parties submitted lists of candidates to the Elections Commission in a self-nomination process to contest the general and regional elections on March 2.
If one of the two main political groups in Guyana, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) or A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) achieves an absolute majority at the March 2 general elections, one half of the population will feel alienated.
The spectacle of a Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, a world renowned fighter for human rights, and former political prisoner, denying genocide during last week at the World Court is sobering.
With the Conservative Party polling at 42 per cent and the Labour Party at 32 per cent, the results on December 12 appear to be a likely Conservative Party victory.
During last week, the Stabroek News published an article (Akola Thompson – “Towards a post-racial future” and a letter (Ryhaan Shah – “Little hope of a post-racial future for Guyana any time soon”) on the future of race in Guyana.
Esther Perreira, a PNC supporter, filed an elections petition in 1998, challenging the validity of the 1997 elections on several grounds, one of which was that the elections were unlawfully conducted.
Jaded by the PPP/C’s 23 years in office, many were elated at the coalition between the APNU and AFC because it offered the real possibility of ending the PPP/C’s long incumbency.
As Guyana’s political season enters its beginning stages, a plethora of new political parties are coming forward to present their programmes to the electorate and seeking its support.
It was on October 9, 1953, 66 years ago last week, that the Conservative British Government of Winston Churchill suspended what was known as British Guiana’s Waddington Constitution.
October 5, 1992, the date of the return to democracy after a quarter of a century, promised not only a new era of democracy, but of winner-does-not-take-all politics.