Controversial times in Guyana; The 2019 elections

BY JONELL PANTLITZ
TORONTO CARIBBEAN NEWS INTERN

It is that season, again; no not Christmas, election in my home country Guyana. There are a number of parties in the running but the major active parties are:  A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC), People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), and there are at least five new parties which have been recently launched. In all my years of life (well my magnificent 17 years) I have never witnessed an election where there is no controversy. The election is due to be held on March 2^nd, 2020, and this is because MP Charrandas Persaud voted against his own party’s leadership in the no-confidence motion.

Persaud claims his reasoning for this is because he believes the government hasn’t been focusing on developing the country or creating jobs, and this comes after the over 30,000 jobs lost in almost four years under the APNU/AFC coalition government. He has since left Guyana, and fled to Toronto because of the death threats that he has received. If you are not familiar with the no-confidence motion, it is defined as “A vote on whether a group of people still has confidence in a government or leader.”

After the surprise vote, President David Granger challenges it at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), but, after six months of legal wrangling, he lost the case. The CCJ said, “It would not be appropriate to order the interim administration to name an election date; it was the responsibility of Gecom to respect the constitution.” The CCJ made a final ruling on June 18^th, 2019, indicating that the passage of the no-confidence vote was valid thereby triggering elections in three months. The three months expired on September 18^th. Granger announced on September 25^th that the elections would be held on March 2^nd, 2020. “The situation comes at a great cost to the people of Guyana. The prevailing political uncertainty undermines Guyanese institutions, compromises economic opportunities and delays development.” Diplomats, from the United States, Britain and the European Union, said in a statement. “This current situation hinders our ability to support Guyana’s development needs.”

The Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) says they will fight to ensure that Guyanese are not disenfranchised. The Party has expressed horror because of a ploy to disenfranchise thousands of voters with a whopping 13,000 objections that were made in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) during the recently concluded Objections leg of the Claims and Objection exercise. According to Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo at his weekly press conference on Thursday, November 14^th, most of the 13,000 objections were fortunately thrown out. He noted that there are still hearings in the Moraikobai community. “Imagine this is a small Amerindian community in the Mahaicony River and APNU has objected to 464 names on the list which is almost the entire community. They want to disenfranchise because they know that the PPP, in past elections, has gotten upwards of 90% of the votes from that community. So they’re trying to get the people’s names off the voters’ list. Of course, we will fight this vigorously,” Jagdeo contended.

Guyana’s newly founded oil is also a hot topic in the upcoming elections. Many would say it’s also the reason for the rise in the new upcoming parties. At the start of September, the opposition PPP leader Bharrat Jagdeo said all contracts signed after ExxonMobil’s 1999 production sharing agreement (PSA) would be reviewed if the party wins the pending election. The opposition has accused Granger’s government of mismanaging the country’s oil resources and granting Exxon overly generous contract terms. “The oil sector is expected to account for 40% of the country’s gross domestic product by 2024,” the International Monetary Fund has reported.