The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) has accused Georgetown Mayor Hamilton Green of attempting to extort vendors in exchange for protection during possible elections unrest—a charge that the Chief Citizen has denied.
“Those claims are completely untrue, blatant lies, bizarre, [have] no basis of fact and outright ridiculous,” Green said at a press briefing called to rebut claims made by President Bharrat Jagdeo at a recent campaign meeting in Stewartville, West Demerara and which were repeated by Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee at a press conference yesterday at Freedom House.
Rohee said efforts were being made to collect statements from vendors to build a police case against Green. He added that he learnt that a number of the vendors walked out of a meeting, after sounding their disapproval with the mayor’s overtures. “The extent to which it was successful is highly questionable,” he said.
Green, he alleged, was engaging in “intimidatory” action, in violation of the elections code of conduct for political parties.
“My reading of the code of conduct makes reference to this, what I call this type of intimidatory behaviour and calls on the contesting parties to desist from this kind of intimidatory behaviour,” he added.
He also said that persons from opposition parties were also approaching some business owners to similarly solicit funds.
Green admitted that as he meets with vendors, including sometimes in his office, he lobbies for them to support A Partnership for National Unity (APNU). He said he had no apologies to make for doing this, since he was not breaking the law but only advising vendors on choosing a government whom he thought was best for Guyana.
Given the current political season, he said he saw no reason for the “hullabaloo,” since “political hustling” is a common practice during the campaign season. He said that he will not cease his lobby for persons to choose the APNU to lead Guyana, adding that “If Jagdeo comes to the Mayor’s Office, I will ask him too to vote APNU.”
Green further stated that he had also heard recordings of the president calling him a barnacle, fossil and obsolete, to compare his age to that being of antiquated or outdated objects. In response, he said that if those things meant standing up for what he believed, embracing the sanctity of marriage, lobbying for a state ombudsman and highlighting injustices brought on the young then he would accept the descriptions.
He added that for now, he will not allow anyone or anything to distract him as he campaigns for APNU.
