Dear Editor,
The Department of Government and International Affairs, University of Guyana must be commended for hosting the first ever presidential discourse at the George Walcott Large Lecture Theatre. This is good for the political health of this country where those seeking political office interface with the academic and wider community regarding their vision of a better Guyana.
My only concern is what appeared to be an orchestrated attempt by some people in the audience to disrupt the activity by way of manifest expressions of biases based on their own political preferences which had nothing to do with the substance or content of the presentations, but everything to do with scoring cheap political points.
This does not speak well of the university and the entire campus community. One would have thought that as academics and budding academics there would have been higher levels of tolerance for a diversity of views on the way forward for Guyana. This from all indications was not the case, as participants showed a clear preference for one candidate over the others even before the discourse actually commenced.
The organizers of the discourse need to put in place measures to avoid such a recurrence, which is not only counterproductive but negates the value such discourses are expected to generate.
Yours faithfully,
Hydar Ally
