As promised, this column will consider the political side of former president Donald Ramotar’s ‘Under the PPP/C Guyana had the fastest growing economy in the region’ (SN: 22/05/2017), since it raised important issues which, because they are coming from Mr. Donald Ramotar and there is a tendency by constituents to categorise most of the political actions of the other side as racist, are likely to be rejected out of hand by many. More specifically, I want to properly consider his claim that the economic decline between 1998 and 2005 resulted from attempts by the PNC and its collaborators to destabilize the PPP/C government and that in the last two years of APNU+AFC rule we have been experiencing what could amount to a budding ‘competitive authoritarianism.’
