By Tracey Khan – Drakes
[www.inewsguyana.com] – General Secretary of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Joseph Harmon is of the view that former President, Bharrat Jagdeo does not deserve another term in office.
His comment comes in wake of a motion filed in the High Court challenging the constitutionality of the presidential two-term limit.
Guyana’s Constitution states that a person elected as President after the year 2000 is eligible for re-election only once. At the moment, the former President is the only one to whom the constitutional provisions apply, since all other former Presidents have passed away.
“As far as I am concerned he is not entitled to it, this is only my personal view but the Court will make a determination of that but in my view what I am seeing is that what he is saying to President Ramotar is maybe I should be the Presidential candidate and not you, that’s an internal matter for the PPP and they will have to deal with that but as far as the Guyanese public is concerned Jagdeo has had his time and we are not going to give him another chance,” Harmon said.
Harmon challenged the former President to fight his own battles and come clean about his plans of wanting to run for office again.
“Jagdeo is hiding behind surrogates to push his programme, he hasn’t come forward, he doesn’t have the belly, he doesn’t have the guts to come forward and say look I want to have another term. He is using some Attorneys and you can see the quality of the persons who have actually filed the matter on his behalf.”
iNews understands that Jagdeo is in Europe on overseas duties. The former President had previously indicated no interest in seeking another term but recently, General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Clement Rohee noted that he might be part of the 2015 elections campaign.
The motion names Attorney General, Anil Nandlall and Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman as respondents.
Meanwhile, Attorney-at-Law, Emily Dodson told iNews that the move by Guyana ‘s National Assembly to restrict a President to be able to serve only two terms in office is illegal in its current form and such a reform should have been done by way of referendum.
In an exclusive interview with iNews, Dodson also made it clear that the writ was not politically motivated, explaining that she has already received several questions to that extent from concerned politicians.
