PPP hauled this country out of a financial black hole  – AG Nandlall says PNC destructive both in and out of Gov’t

ATTORNEY General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall has warned the electorate about the People’s National Congress (PNC) party, saying that that party has maintained in the Caribbean an unenviable record of being destructive both in and out of Government.

His pronouncements came against the backdrop of fast approaching General and Regional Elections, and as the coalition of A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) prepare to launch its campaign in Berbice today at Whim village in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).

That coalition’s archrival, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), will be rallying the masses today in Georgetown at a campaign billed for staging at the Kitty Market Square. The ruling party is seeking both to remain in power and to regain a majority of seats in the National Assembly, which it lost in the 2011 elections.

Speaking at a recent party rally at Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara, the Attorney General was adamant that the PNCR is the controller of APNU, and that it has managed to recruit the Alliance For Change (AFC) as the latest member of its harem of ‘concubines’. The PNCR-controlled APNU and the AFC, he said, are now one in ideology.

Nandlall told the sizeable gathering of supporters that the APNU+AFC alliance’s call for change is misguided. He opined that the PNC is suffering from an identity crisis and is doing all it can to change. Buttressing his argument, Minister Nandlall said that since the PNC party lost power in the first democratic elections held in 1992, it has changed its identity from PNC to PNCR (Reform), then to PNCR-1 Guyana, then to APNU; but it remains essentially the same outfit in character.

Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall speaking at the Vreed-en-Hoop public meeting last week

UNCHANGING CHARACTER Today, he said, the PNC party is called APNU+AFC; but although that party has repeatedly changed its name, it has not changed its character and vintage tendencies. Nandlall pointed out that the APNU+AFC is really the PNC in disguise, the party that had, for 28 years, maintained a stranglehold on power through violence, extra-judicial killings, political assassinations, and wanton abuse of the citizenry, including the banning of basic foods items.

He urged the gathering, listening with rapt attention, to know the ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’; and he said that many young people today would not be aware, but in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the votes of their parents and grandparents had been trampled upon, and demand for scrutiny had been silenced by the bullet. He was referring to the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), in the 1970s in Berbice, gunning down two young men who had been concerned about the safety and integrity of the ballot boxes.

Nandlall said that instruction to members of the Guyana Defence Force to use deadly force could only have come from their superiors in the army, and APNU+AFC Leader, retired Brigadier David Granger, had been a senior functionary in the GDF at that time.

“Granger has blood on his hands!” Nandlall told the gathering. He asked: “Is this the man who you want to lead the country?” And the crowd responded with a resounding “No!”

“They not only rigged the elections,” he said, “they muzzled the press, denying newsprint for the PPP newspaper, the Mirror, and the Working People’s Alliance’s (WPA) Dayclean.”