Conversation Tree

One of the few issues of agreement between all political parties in Guyana after 1992 was term limitation for the President.

The selection of Dr Bharrat Jagdeo by the Central Committee of the PPP as its nominee for Opposition Leader seals that party’s fate in opposition for decades to come, unless the APNU+AFC coalition underperforms or unravels.

Both APNU and the AFC appear anxious to amend the Cummingsburg Accord allegedly on the ground that the reality of political office has clashed with the Accord’s constitutionality.

The Representation of the People Act, which can be found in Volume 1 of the Laws of Guyana, contains the laws relating to elections, including the counting and recounting of votes.

Venezuela’s proclamation of its “Atlantic Front” on May 27, which includes all of Guyana’s maritime space, having already maintained since 1962 its fictional claim to two-thirds of Guyana’s land territory, is breathtaking in its audacity.

Guyanese who have served their country with distinction can once again look forward to being recognized.

The end of the Jagan leadership of the PPP terminated the era of real, as opposed to formal, internal democracy.

The PPP’s boast has always been that it never lost elections.

I should like to take this opportunity to express my congratulations to the APNU+AFC alliance on its historic victory at the general and regional elections and to David Granger, Guyana’s new President.

  Guyanese will vote on Monday for a Government that they wish to conduct the affairs of the nation on their behalf for the next five years.

In 1962 the slogan ‘axe the tax’ became well known in then British Guiana.

The OAS Observer Mission, the British High Commissioner, the United States Representative and the Private Sector Commission have all publicly raised concerns about the dangers of inflammatory language being used in the election campaign in Guyana.

When the US Government under President Bush decided in 1990 that it would support free and fair elections in Guyana, it was the Carter Center that was called upon to act as the midwife for a new era of democracy in Guyana.

I must confess that I have had an ambivalent attitude to ethnicity for most of my life.

Since the restoration of free and fair elections in Guyana, the only election results that have been accepted were those of 1992, even though they, and most other elections since then, were accompanied by violence, particularly after the elections.

In the Gospel according to St Mark, Chapter 10, Verse 25, Jesus is recorded as having said: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

In an article for my blog, www.conversationtree.gy, published in last week’s Sunday Stabroek, I took issue with a statement by former President Jagdeo that implied that Cheddi and Janet Jagan lived in luxury.

As expected, the events at Babu John attracted wide attention and media coverage.

This month the PPP celebrates the life of Cheddi Jagan. In preparing to face the electorate, the party will be today invoking his legacy at Babu John.

The responses of the PPP to The Cummingsburg Accord by APNU and the AFC were a declaration by President Ramotar that it is a “farce” and the unleashing of Ms Elisabeth Harper as its prime ministerial candidate.