A CONSENSUS PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE


Frustration at the political gridlock which obstructs all progress now pervades our politics. It has resulted in well meaning persons raising the issue once again of a consensus presidential candidate for the Opposition. This proposal, always just below the political surface, has more resonance at this time than any other in view of the 2011 election results. In earlier times political supporters of the Opposition often raised the idea in the hope that if accepted, it may attract enough supporters from the PPP to give the Opposition an absolute majority. Now that the Opposition together have a majority, many feel that a consensus presidential candidate can now bring victory to the Opposition.

As is well known the Guyana Constitution does not permit two or more Parties which together obtain a majority of the votes at elections to select the head of government or form the government. The Party which obtains the plurality wins the Presidency and can form a minority government as is the case now.

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MANDELA


For most politically conscious people of my age, Nelson Mandela has been with us all our lives. I was not yet a teenager in the late 1950s when I remember a sticker on my father’s car ‘End Apartheid Now,’ the meaning of which I only later learnt. By the time the Rivonia Trials came around, and because I was from a political home, I could feel the impact of the trial and imprisonment of Nelson Mandela and his colleagues because all the adults around me felt and talked about it.

In the ensuing years the entire PPP and all the current leaders of my generation were deeply affected by apartheid and were involved in the struggle against it. Most of us knew many South Africans from the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party and met many others during travels to overseas conferences. The anti-apartheid movement in the UK was very powerful during the time I was a student and afforded the opportunity to me and thousands to contribute tangibly to freedom for South Arica and all political prisoners.

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A MAN MADE DISASTER


Georgetown is already a disaster. An explosion of disease is all that remains to condemn the city as unsafe for human habitation. The spectacle of Georgetown and its environs under water was not unusual but the mixture of water with muck and floating garbage from clogged drains could only be described as gross. Even though the Government has taken control of the city’s administration, the interminable blame game continues, while the city gets worse every year, just when we felt that it was so bad it could not.

Yet we were recently regaled by Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, a Champion of the Earth, not bother about clogged drains. The daily column in Guyana Times, Eyewitness, nowadays reflects his views in uncannily familiar language, close to his own. It regularly takes issue with anyone, including me, who may have ignited, or could potentially ignite, the great man’s infamously short fuse in puerile analyses and ‘pathetic’ (Eyewitness’s word) conclusions, but has not pontificated on the relationship between clogged drains and flooding in the city.

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THAT THIRD PRESIDENTIAL TERM


There has been much, inevitable, speculation about the future of President Jagdeo. It started while his second term was coming to an end as supporters, including the late Pandit Reepu Daman Persaud, publicly expressed support for a third presidential term. It intensified when flyers and buttons were produced and widely circulated. Speculation about a third presidential term has been renewed once more, no doubt because many supporters of the PPP believe that his candidacy will restore its absolute majority. Many supporters also feel that his resolute aggressiveness towards the Opposition and all critics is exactly what is needed at this time.

President Jagdeo is still very active in politics and governance. He also maintains a high international profile, serving on many bodies relating to climate change including of the Commonwealth. He recently addressed the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference. The dilemma that will face the PPP when election time comes around is whether to field the same candidates who were unsuccessful in bringing home the majority. The first issue is to determine whether a third presidential term is possible under Guyana law?

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LOCAL DEMOCRACY – AS DISTANT AS ‘A PALE BLUE DOT’


In the 47 years of Guyana’s post independence history, Guyanese have had the opportunity only once, in 1994, of having freely elected our local leaders. Local government elections were held twice after 1966, once under the 28 year rule of the PNC in 1974 and once under the 21 year rule of the PPP in 1994.

One of Guyana’s great indigenous institutions was its system of local democracy. We did not invent it but it grew with the village system, which was developed after slavery by former slaves and their descendants. Later institutionalized by legislation, local authorities were training grounds for both local and national leaders. They together established the Guyana Association of Local Authorities known by its acronym, GALA. It was a powerful and respected body and influenced the development of policies. Llewelyn John, a practicing lawyer and politician and a former PNC Home Affairs Minister, emerged into national prominence from the local government system. So did Dalchand, a former PPP MP and a senior Party leader, who started his political life as a village leader and now lives in Canada.

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