Dear Editor,
In my recent letters, I spoke about the experience afforded to me since the change of political administration in 2015 to participate in local government elections. For me, true democracy begins at this grassroots level, with the average people, and finally makes it way to the top with our elected representatives acting in the interest of the people who put them there.
As a young man, as a father whose children will have to inherit the future of this country, and as a politician, the trust that people place in me, my leadership and the integrity with which I represent them is very important. This is why for me, even as I respect the right of Charrandas Persaud to disagree with the political direction he believes this government has taken, I do not understand the reasoning he has offered for using his position as a lawmaker entrusted in carrying out the will of the people to bring down the very government they elected to office in May of 2015.
Even if he were directly elected, there was no legitimate process that Persaud went through that could justify his acting in contradiction to the will of the people that put him there. For reasons that were primarily personal, and primarily petulant, Mr. Persaud did not simply betray his colleagues that he broke bread with on the government side of the house – he betrayed those people.
Mr. Persaud spent a great deal of time listing the grouses he had with the government. What he did not have prepared was a meaningful or plausible apology and explanation to the voters whose trust he enjoyed, as he explained, the privileges and perks of being a parliamentarian. This does not sound like someone whose conscience was burdened by the concerns of the people to whom he was obligated.
He did not afford the people whose interest he represented as part of the collective government the right or opportunity to change their minds through the correct mechanism. He chose it for them and then removed himself entirely from the process.
As a supporter of the APNU+AFC government that restored local government democracy to the people of this country, this in my mind was not heroism or conscience but a blow to the democratic system, one that sets us back. It is however a setback that cannot and will not prevail. The will of the people in 2015 was one that rejected deception, partisan interests, the undermining of rule of law, and the disregard for democratic convention. I am confident that the will of the people will reflect the same, whenever the next national elections are held.
Yours faithfully,
Gifford Marshall
Mayor of Bartica
