Latest update February 12th, 2025 8:40 AM
Jan 23, 2025 Letters
Dear Editor
In a Sunday Stabroek article dated March 1, 2015, the then President Mr. David Granger told the newspapers “We have said a government of national unity means exactly what it says, if APNU were to win 52% of the votes, we cannot lock out 48% of the population. Government of national unity means government of national unity,”. Words that were never kept, so much so that even the AFC was locked out by and large from the so-called six-party coalition Government between 2015 and 2020. History did not judge Mr. David Granger kindly.
Today, it appears that history is about to repeat itself since all the ingredients are in place for a repeat of the same old scam game with its six-party coalition of five “wanna-bees” and the PNC. I say “wanna-bees” since the WPA and all the strange personalities that are turning up to join this phantom coalition cannot count collectively one hundred (100) supporters, to justify their existence. From my journeys around Guyana in December 2024 and listening to the voice of the people, even the AFC is expected to fall under a threshold of 2,000 supporters in 2025 because of their opportunistic political posturing over the years. The only political force in Guyana that will pull more than 30 seats, yet again will be the PNC and the PPP with the PPP having the advantage of being in office.
If one is to trace back to the conceptual reasoning offered by the PNC on why the coalition arose, their narrative was grounded in a belief that the political landscape is legally supported by a “winner take all” doctrine and this was not consistent with the national sentiment. The reasoning appears logical at face value, since it confirms that the Constitution does not represent the will of the people but the will of whoever is in the ruling elite and thus marginalizes large blocks of Guyanese by the hundreds of thousands.
The idea behind the “big-tent” coalition of six parties was to do exactly what Mr. Granger said, create “a government of national unity” to share government with all the blocks that are in the society. But the evidence is now solidly established that it never happened because the APNU-AFC Government did not serve all the blocks of people in Guyana and was anti-working class. Rather than engendering a framework of national unity, they created national disharmony. What theoretically Guyana needs is a new system of governance that will unite our people around their shared interest in peaceful coexistence similar to the Suriname model. Unfortunately, the people in Guyana and many former British colonies do not identify themselves in such a manner.
The APNU-AFC sought to conceive in an Agreement (Cummingsburg Accord) a framework but the records will prove that such Agreements derive their authority from the entities that sign them; not the people. Those political entities are not the nation-state from which the loyalties of the people are derived. Therefore, the Cummingsburg Accord was an imposition on the people.
The conclusion from the above can translate to the APNU-AFC six-party coalition suffering from a permanent crisis of legitimacy. In the end, the real political party in that coalition (the PNC) had to assert itself very early in Mr. Granger’s term by using its constitutional authority to advance whatever little was done in that Government. The real power rested with Mr. David Granger and it revealed itself within days of the APNU-AFC coalition winning power in 2015. History will be written that Mr. Moses Nagamootoo may have fit the bill of a rubberstamp, if there is anything like a political rubberstamp.
Today in 2025, I have been informed by sources close to Mr. Mohamed Azharuddin, that he has made a decision about his 2025 position and certainly, it will not be in the political arena. From all appearances, “Azzo is out”. I have also been told that the PNC is asserting its authority again that it must have the Presidential Candidate in the Coalition which means one of the other five baby parties will have the Prime Ministerial Candidate slot. This does not bode well for Mr. Nigel Hughes, because how will it look for a Guyanese of African descent as the Presidential Candidate coming from the PNC and Mr. Nigel Hughes another Guyanese of African descent being touted as the Prime Minister candidate of the PNC led coalition? That is an election-losing proposition.
In the final analysis, while there may be a Cummingburg Accord Part Deux, it is clear it cannot influence confidence from the people since it will be seen as a repeat of the same old failed model. The Guyanese people may very well remain unconvinced since it can come across as an act of desperation against a well-oiled PPP machinery that will be implementing a $1.3 trillion budget. What is even worse is that this PNC-led coalition, when given the chance in 2015 to manage the country, failed at governing the country competently and thus there can only be one conclusion and one winner from this situation in 2025. Go figure!
Sincerely
Emily Lorrimer
(The PNC-led coalition did not take advantage of their chances)
Feb 12, 2025
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