SUSTAINING AND ADVANCING DEMOCRACY FOR THE NEW YEAR

In the critical years of the 1970s and 1980s, three major issues engaged the attention of my political colleagues – restore democracy, advance social progress and avoid civil strife. We firmly believed that Guyana could make no progress unless full democracy through free and fair elections were restored. Our analysis was that it was the […]

TO PRESERVE ITSELF, THE AFC MUST RESIGN FROM THE GOVERNMENT

Leaking information to the press is an old and revered tradition in a democracy. In the United States today, leaking is an essential element in the controversies surrounding the Trump presidency. It was leaks by “Deep Throat” that exposed the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon in 1974. It is therefore not surprising that […]

WHAT DO RISING POLITICAL TENSIONS MEAN?

Political tensions in Guyana took a turn for the worst over the past two weeks. This has resulted from the appointment by President Granger of former Justice James Patterson as Chairman of the Elections Commission. Claiming that the third set of names contained no one who was fit and proper as required by the Constitution, […]

ANGER AND FRUSTRATION

The Peoples’ Progressive Party went to extraordinary lengths over ten months to find eighteen Guyanese willing to agree to have their names submitted to the President of Guyana for consideration to be appointed to one of the most difficult, controversial and thankless of jobs – Chair of the Elections Commission. Of the last six names […]

WHAT I SAID IN NEW YORK: A SYNOPSIS

October 5 will forever be remembered in the history of Guyana as the date when a short-lived democracy was restored. Our freedom was obtained on May 26, 1966. The period of formal democracy lasted from 1966, until 1968 when it was crushed by rigged elections. The rigging of the 1968, 1973, 1980 and 1985 elections […]