Dear Editor,
In the Saturday October 19th edition of the Kaieteur News, His Worship the Mayor penned a letter that once again furnished the nation with the modus operandi of the PNC/APNU. This should serve to strengthen our resolve to ensure that the PNC/APNU never regain the reigns of political leadership in Guyana.
Having been overwhelmingly defeated at that monumental October 5th 1992 polls after ensuring that Guyana was handed a most corrupt, inept and brutal period of dictatorship for twenty eight years, Hamilton Green wrote this, “When Cheddi Jagan and I spoke, I complimented him, for him and the PPP accepting the concept or notion of the shared governance. And said it would be noble of the PPP to put this policy in place in circumstances where they were victorious and not only where they were the losers. I told him that I would agree, provided the idea would apply to Boards, Commissions, the Diplomatic service and even the cabinet.  That was the end of our conversation.”
The information above is quite revealing and is a clear manifestation that, regardless of the lexical metamorphosis they may have undergone, the PNC remains the same oppressive, authoritarian power-hungry entity as we know it.
His Worship validates the position that the PPP/C has always been open to the concept of shared governance-this should not be equated with attaining power through the backdoor as the PNC/APNU outfit would like.
Here we see that the Father of our Nation, the embodiment of magnanimity, Dr. Cheddi Jagan after having been deliberately removed and kept out of political office by the now vanquished PNC, made an offer for the rotation of Mayors for a three-year period – “First year GGG, Second year PNC and Third year PPP.” But this wasn’t enough for the power hungry Hamilton Green who was trying to come to grips with losing political power. He wanted more; he wanted the same to be applied to Boards, Commissions, the Diplomatic Service and cabinet.
We should bear in mind that when the PPP/C won the 1992 elections, Dr. Jagan adopted a policy of altruism vis-à-vis his presidency, thereby allowing Public Servants to remain in their positions though ninety five (95%) percent of them were affiliated to the PNC. These would include those on the State Boards, Commissions and the Diplomatic Service. We should be cognizant of the fact the under the PNC dictatorship, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was the flagship Ministry of the despotic regime. Many within the Opposition are erudite enough to point out that during that time Guyana’s Foreign Service was the envy of the CARICOM countries. In fact a lot of prestige was given to those who were employed in the Foreign Service. During that period, only those sympathetic to the regime were employed in the Foreign Service, in fact many of the staff who were at clerical level at that time have now become policy makers and are part of the decision making apparatus of the Ministry.  Many of them were visible during Opposition campaigns in previous elections.
In relation to the Cabinet positions, it is clear that the PNC was not prepared to cede power. They wanted to be placed in the corridors of power recklessly using the term shared governance. How could they have served in a PPP/C cabinet while being diametrically opposed to the social and economic policies of the PPP/C? They wanted a marriage without courtship. This would have been the trickery used by the PNC to continue to keep their hands on power.
Dr. Jagan offered Hamilton Green a yard, he wanted a mile. Your Worship, we voted in 1992 for a change in Government, we voted for the PPP/C, not for an exchange.
Baldeo Mathura