Declaring that the days of the PPP/C using the National Assembly as a rubber stamp are over, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) yesterday called for national support as it moves to enact laws for constitutional and electoral reforms.
“…We urge all Guyanese to rally around the APNU as we seek to enact legislation for constitutional and electoral reforms that would return democracy to the people,” APNU said in a statement.
It was responding to a Stabroek News report that President Donald Ramotar had said that late President Dr Cheddi Jagan would not have liked what was happening in the National Assembly regarding the composition of the Committee of Selection, where the governing PPP/C has a minority status. APNU and AFC used their one-seat advantage to secure a majority on the Committee of Selection, which has prompted a court challenge by the government.
Stabroek News had reported on Wednesday that President Ramotar, in an address to the annual Cheddi Jagan lecture at Red House, Kingston, Georgetown, on Tuesday, told the audience that what was occurring in Parliament was a reversal of what Dr Jagan had struggled for.
However, APNU declared that Dr Jagan would not have tolerated what the political partnership describes as “the rampant corruption, nepotism, and rape and plunder of the state treasury that the PPP/C government has engaged in over the past 20 years.”
It also charged that Dr Jagan “would not have tolerated the abuse of power by the PPP leaders who have been implicated in all sorts of crimes as well as predatory behaviour….”
APNU said further that “Dr Jagan would not have permitted the gifting away of state properties and lands to his cronies and sycophants.” It also contended that Dr Jagan would not have allowed “GuySuCo to deteriorate to the point of bankruptcy and returning to slavery methodology to force sugar workers to produce.”
Moreover, in slamming the ruling party, APNU contended that Dr Jagan would not have allowed the narco trade to flourish and he would not have employed narco-death squads nor would he have befriended the drug traffickers.
APNU said it wished to remind the public that in 1992, the PPP/C had won the presidency but not a working majority in Parliament. However, APNU said, the WPA made an arrangement with the PPP in Region 8 that gave the PPP the one seat it needed to gain a parliamentary majority.
Since then, APNU continued, the PPP/C had turned the National Assembly into a rubber stamp and bulldozed opposition concerns since 1997.
“Guyana descended into an elected dictatorship under the PPP regime.
The Guyanese people ended that dictatorship on the 28th, November 2011, when the majority of them voted against the PPP,” APNU maintained, adding that the ruling party was defeated by the people although it committed “electoral fraud and malpractices” on polling day.
However, the PPP is like the proverbial old dog that cannot learn new tricks, APNU said, bent on governing in its old dictatorial ways. The PPP wants “to continue raping and plundering the state treasury at will and cannot accept that it now has to account to the National Assembly and the Guyanese people,” it charged.
