Conversation Tree

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS

Notwithstanding the controversies that have bedeviled the processes leading up to local government elections, it appears as if Guyana will have a date with local democracy on June 12. While local government elections are carefully watched by those interested in public affairs, including the media, the voting public has generally yawned at the prospect. In Guyana and elsewhere the turnout is generally in the vicinity of just above 30 percent. This being the case, the most that can be said about the results is that they indicate a trend. The 61 percent vote for the PPP and 34 percent for APNU on a 36 percent turnout in 2018 merely indicated a trend for national election results. The PPP won and APNU lost, but each by a hair’s breadth, and only after a monumental struggle against election rigging.

TREADING IN MURKY WATERS

Some weeks ago, the Chief Justice found that the Local Content Secretariat, a regulatory agency, had wrongly refused to issue a Local Content Certificate to Ramps Logistics. The Chief Justice ordered that the certificate be issued within a week. Two weeks ago, Justice Sandil Kissoon found that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), also a regulatory agency, had breached its statutory duty in failing to ensure EEPGL’s compliance with condition 14 of the Environmental Permit (Renewed) to obtain an unlimited liability guarantee from the parent company or an affiliate company. The Judge gave the EPA five days to issue the required notice to EEPGL under the EPA Act. There was no appeal in the Ramps Logistics case. The appeal in the EPA case will determine if Justice Kissoon was right.

THE CORONATION OF KING CHARLES III

The Coronation of King Charles III took place yesterday in London, United Kingdom, with great pomp, pageantry and fanfare. As expected, the event was a solemn but spectacular display of both temporal and spiritual dedication in colourful regalia and with priceless robes, orbs and sceptres. British people turned out in their numbers to witness the historic occasion, whih last took place in 1953 when King Charles III’s mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was coronated as Queen. For most people alive in the UK and in Guyana this would be the first time that an event of such spectacle is being experienced. And the British coronation is unlike any other. It has its ’majestic’ roots in the celebration of Britain’s power in its glory days as the largest and most powerful empire ever established, ruling much of the Black and Brown world and parts of the White world.

THE REPORT

The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the General and Regional Elections of Guyana on 2 March 2020 is the first of its kind, despite the fact that the first rigged general elections in Guyana occurred in 1968, some 55 years ago. It found that the Chief Election Officer (CEO) first disenfranchised 275,092 voters for the PPP by unilateral nullification. In a second report he disqualified “another 115,884 persons.” It concluded: “The idea that the CEO or GECOM could, in an unaccountable, non-transparent and seemingly arbitrary manner, without the due processes and the legal standards established in Article 163 and in the Validation Act, disenfranchise scores of thousands of electors is entirely inconsistent with the constitutional framework.” The Inquiry found that the actions of the CEO “were a brazen attempt to prevent GECOM from declaring the true results of the elections of 2 June 2020.” There are many more findings in the Report confirming the attempts to manipulate the elections. The conduct of the Deputy CEO, Roxanne Myers, and Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, were examined.

THE GREATEST LITERARY HOAX IN HISTORY

459years ago today, William Shakspere was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. He died there 407 years ago today, in 1616, at the age of 52. There are no documentary records that link William Shakspere to William Shakespeare, the dramatist and poet, and greatest writer in the English language. In 1920 J. Thomas Looney in “Shakespeare Identified,” raised the authorship question which had emerged long before. He identified Edward de Vere, the 17^th Earl of Oxford, as the writer who used the pseudonym “William Shakespeare.”