Imagine convening a meeting – demanded by the Constitution – between the President and the Opposition Leader to discuss some constitutional appointments taking one-and-a-half years!! And this excludes the 5 months it took to get a result from the last elections, after the PNC barefacedly tried to rig it in front of the world!! Looks like foot-dragging is a PNC specialty, since it took all that time to decide who exactly was their leader – and thus the Opposition Leader!!
At this rate, they better start now for elections 2025?? Now, right off the bat following Granger’s concession, the PNC insisted the PPP Government was “installed”, and, as such, they didn’t recognise it. They just looked like the hypocrites they are, since, as a result of the same elections, they accepted the office (and salary!!) of Opposition Leader. If the latter role was legit, why wasn’t the former? And, of course, they had to duke it out to figure out exactly who was the Opposition Leader (there were pretenders, usurpers and place holders!) who wasn’t going to meet no President!! It became a Guyanese soap opera that played out in real time as farce.
Then, after all that sturm and drang, long-time PNC stalwart Aubrey Norton became the man in the Opposition chair. He demonstrated right away that he wasn’t going to be blackmailed by the extremist fringe to come out into the streets to protest the “illegitimacy” of the PPP Government. Very pragmatically, he insisted, however, that while he would have to be invited by the Government (which he therefore accepted implicitly) for constitutional consultations, he’d insist his wider concerns be also on the table.
But a funny thing happened on the way to that meeting: Norton ran into a buzz saw named Jagdeo. As your Eyewitness had mentioned, those two parallel lines broke all the laws of geometry – and what a clash it was. There, he was provoked into admitting that he had the PNC SOPs – which they’d claimed showed them winning the elections – and that he’d produce them after Jagdeo debated him on the issue!!
But here, he was meeting President Ali. And going by their release, they’d consulted on constituting the Integrity, Police, Judicial Service and Teaching Commissions. Norton demanded to see the CVs of the persons the PPP had in mind, and he’d then give his opinion. We weren’t told whether, as he’d demanded, he’s raised some other issues. Quite reasonable. The other concerns? We weren’t told.
Your Eyewitness is pleased that our politics is closely getting back to an even keel. Opposition Leader Norton should not be goaded – from within or without – to veer from the course.
Elections have now become a toss-up!!
…of the second generation
One thing that struck your Eyewitness on the pics of the meeting between Pres Ali and LoO Norton – apart from the latter’s “game face” – was their sartorial choices. Gone are the shirt-jacs of Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham that signalled their break from “colonialism”. Both leaders and their “seconds” were in “jacket and tie”!! But if the Chinese communists can also adopt that gear wholesale, maybe it doesn’t have the same significance?!
As he left the meeting, LoO Norton was badgered by some reporters as to whether he’d brought the PNC’s SOPs. But to be fair to him, he’d committed to bringing them at his debate with VP Jagdeo. Your Eyewitness believes if the media wants to see those SOPs – and for sure the Guyanese people certainly do!! – they should do us all a favour and arrange that debate.
After all, in that bastion of democracy, the USA, isn’t it generally the press that arrange political debates?
With the incumbent in red and the challenger in green!!
…with Public Service money
There’s a real dust-up going on in the GPSU Credit Union. The new-broom Chair wants to be the alpha (Chair) and omega (CEO), and the rest of the Board rebelled.
Get out these peanuts!!
