APNU today called on President Donald Ramotar to name a date for general elections, charging that his announcement this afternoon of polls next year was further evidence that the government had not been serious about dialogue.

The APNU press release follows:

President Donald Ramotar’s fifteen minute attempt to give justification for the failure of his administration and his silencing of the voice of the people is further proof that the Peoples Progressive Party Civic cannot be trusted to handle the affairs of this nation.
For this President to ignore the ongoing prorogation of the Parliament of Guyana(when he addressed the media today) highlights the PPP/C’s cowardly attempt to avoid the flood of adverse criticism facing its scandal-prone administration especially pertaining to corruption and crime.

APNU had earlier alerted the nation that the People’s Progressive Party had been preparing for general and regional elections for several months. This was the reason why the President has been systematically scuttling every attempt to reach agreement on important issues to be debated by the National Assembly with the Opposition APNU and AFC.

APNU is convinced that this was the reason why the President precipitated a political crisis by proroguing Parliament on 10th November. The PPP wanted a ‘free hand’ to continue to spend state resources on the ‘schools’ cash grants’, the ‘clean-up-the-country’ and other projects as part of its elections campaign.

APNU warned that the President was never serious or sincere about dialogue with the Opposition. Dialogue should have been aimed at addressing the needs for local government elections, collaboration on the national budget, the passage of anti-money-laundering and countering the financing of terrorism legislation and other matters.

APNU is convinced that the outcome of the forthcoming election will be determined not by the PPP’s political trickery but by the votes of hundreds of thousands of Guyanese who are fed-up with the PPP.

APNU calls on the President to stop ‘*****-footing’ with the lives of the Guyanese people and name a date for elections.