This decision shows the sort of consideration the PPP has for the citizens of Guyana
DEAR EDITOR, In a strange but perhaps not unaccustomed development, President Donald Ramotar has chosen to announce a date for elections without actually dissolving Parliament. Article 61 of the Constitution requires elections within 90 days of the dissolution of parliament, which means that Ramotar has to officially dissolve Parliament sometime between February 11 and May 10 if he intends to stick to the May 11 date. If he chooses February 11, the fact is that the country still has another three weeks under a prorogation that should not have happened in the first place. Also curious is that the President, who refused to announce a date on the hollow logic that Christmas (which really means private sector profits) would have been disrupted in what would have been the first few weeks of campaigning, apparently has no problem disrupting Mashramani, Easter and Indian Arrival Day, all of which would fall substantially within the peak of the campaign period. In fact, Indian Arrival Day is just a week before voting. And then there is the fact that the date announced by the President falls on the day when not only the University of Guyana, attended by a significant number of our voting population, is scheduled to have tests, but on the same day that high school students are scheduled to sit four CSEC exams, Agricultural Science, Theatre Arts, Electrical and Electronic Technology, and Food and Nutrition. Considering that many polling stations are at high schools, what we have is a potential logistical nightmare in itself and an added inconvenience to the thousands of voting parents whose children are writing the exams that day. Indeed, the campaign will reach its effective peak in mid-April which is when this year’s CSEC examinations begin. I would presume that these considerations would have been voiced by the Minister of Education when Cabinet agreed to May 11 as Election Day, yet the decision was taken anyway. This shows the sort of consideration the PPP has for the citizens of Guyana. Finally, I am happy to have read on online news sites that the Alliance For Change and A Partnership for National Unity have agreed in principle to a coalition, but of course negotiations are on for who, Moses Nagamootoo or David Granger, will head this coalition. My humble advice, which has been expressed by others, is for the parties to focus instead on precisely how it is that a functional coalition government will handle transition from the corruption and incompetence of the PPP administration, even as it tries to rebuild or reconfigure those national institutions that have been either destroyed or weakened by the PPP. The future of this country will not be built by individual men in positions of executive power, but by committed and competent people operating within an inclusionary and functional framework for governance. The configuration at the top is irrelevant – if either Granger or Nagamootoo accedes to the Presidency, an act of God or nature can easily make any post-election jockeying irrelevant, unless of course such agreement is based upon the same farcical arrangement that saw Sam Hinds stepping down not once but twice to facilitate first Janet Jagan’s and then Bharrat Jagdeo’s ascendancy to the Presidency. What is needed is a strong plan based upon the best aspects of both parties’ portfolios as well as inputs from free agent technical experts like Christopher Ram and Janette Bulkan. Indeed what I would recommend is that one of the first things that a de facto coalition should do is to convene public consultations and expert level meetings on various components of a Beyond 2016 vision for Guyana. Even as that is taking place, and there is adequate time, we can look at the sort of human resource capacity that is available, both within and outside of the political party members of the coalition, and then assign those resources on the basis of capacity (both political and technical) under a strong, solidarity-based executive leadership. Ruel Johns
