Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 16, 2018 News
By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
“This is not coded language,” said former President Bharrat Jagdeo as he sought to put his fellow politicians on alert that a rigged 2020 General and Regional Elections will not be taken lightly by the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic. Jagdeo said that there will be no peace if this happens.
Jagdeo said this a few days after a PPP/C Commissioner of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Bibi Shadick, accused the APNU and AFC of setting the stage for “very unpalatable results.”
She too said that the PPP/C will not sit and take lightly “what they are trying to do.”
But Jagdeo was more to the point about PPP/C’s intention to retaliate should they perceive the 2020 elections rigged and the Coalition remains in charge of Guyana.
Jagdeo said, “There will be consequences. If they think that they can rig the elections and have the kind of peace that we have now, they’re wrong; very, very wrong. I hope they are not taking that in their calculation.”
Jagdeo made reference to the fact that on Tuesday, Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Retired Justice James Patterson, used his casting vote to appoint Roxanne Myers as Deputy Chief Elections Officer over Vishnu Persaud.
Jagdeo noted that Persaud was the highest ranking applicant for the job and that he served in the post for three years after being at GECOM since 2001 originally as Public Relations Officer.
Persaud’s contract expired in August 2017. That was the period when no Commission was in place.
Jagdeo revealed that the PPP/C has already written to the Ethnic Relations Commission requesting a full fledged investigation as the party feels that Persaud was voted down by Patterson simply because of his race.
Jagdeo said that Patterson gets the confidence now to act in the manner that he did in light of the High Court decision that upheld President David Granger’s unilateral appointment of Patterson instead of selecting one of Jagdeo’s 18 nominees.
Jagdeo said that the recent development including the appointment “will not break our spirit” and his party would continue “fighting aggressively” for free and fair elections.
Jagdeo said, “I am making it clear about that and it’s not coded language because then the nature of the struggle will be different. We will be struggling against an illegal, illegitimate government that is not in power through the ballot and it will be a different form of struggle, totally different.”
Jagdeo dismissed Minister of State, Joseph Harmon’s forecast, as reported in the State-owned Guyana Chronicle, that the PPP/C would be beaten badly at the next general elections.
The Opposition Leader said that this was not in the 1970s and 1980s when Government controlled the media, but the People’s National Congress Reform, the biggest party in the governing coalition, would have to face up to the PPP in what is now an “open society”.
Jagdeo said, “Given the nature of the PNC, there will be an attempt to try to tamper with the elections but they are not going to find us sitting down. So if Harmon and the others think that we are going to be walk-over, etc, he better disabuse his mind from that notion”.
Jagdeo said that it is Harmon and his party that have to worry because “they know that they are a one-term government. Jagdeo said that that is why all Government ministries are in “grabbing mode.”
The politician said that his party has been treating the APNU+AFC Government as a legitimate one. This is despite the elections petition.
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Apr 19, 2024
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