The People’s Progressive Party took another step in its preparation for General Elections in Guyana when on Saturday its Central Committee of 35 members elected Mr Mohamed Irfaan Ali as its presi-dential candidate. The PPP was in a fortunate position of electing a young leader from among a list of very qualified professionals – all of whom are very experienced in politics, Parliament and in Govern-ment; all of whom also have a long history of representing people across Guyana. It was a hard-fought fight to become the next PPP presidential…
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The same politics of domination
With elections in the air – this time by the shock no-confidence vote – the ethnic sentiments that act like magnets to polarise the populace have returned with a vengeance. Coterminous with the introduction of modern electoral politics in 1953, voting became increasingly influenced by ethnicity. By the 1960s, it was not a coincidence that elections became ethnic censuses. One of the dilemmas of democracy in Guyana under our Westminster majoritarian/plurality rules is how to manage this now reflexive formation of ethnic “factions” to preclude real or perceived tyrannies of…
Read MoreAddressing the ethnic imbalance in the GPF
Addressing participants at the opening of Police Force’s Annual Officers’ Conference under the theme, “Security Sector Reform Implementation – Enhancing Capacity Through Training, Infrastructure and Human Resource Management,” President David Granger emphasised his commitment to security sector reform. “Security sector reform is aimed at improving public trust and confidence, developing stronger organisations, boosting the Force’s intelligence, responsive and investigative capabilities and producing a more versatile Police Officer. Security sector reforms, therefore, must be accelerated to strengthen this vital institution in 2019.” Police Commissioner Leslie James in brief remarks reminded the…
Read MoreA wakeup call to take sexual abuse against children seriously
Across the world, staggering numbers of children – some as young as a few months old – are experiencing violence in varied forms, often by those entrusted to take care of them. While girls are predominantly the victims of sexual abuse, there are several cases of boys being sexually and physically abused as well. The figures in relation to this level of abuse are shocking, and it is quite clear that Governments and international partners need to keep the issue on the front burner, where it is always treated as…
Read MoreThe US catfish ban
From all indications, the current issue regarding the United States’ ban on Guyana’s catfish is nowhere close to being resolved. The ban, which was instituted by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) against Guyana last year, came as no surprise since the mediocre approach to such issues has now become a norm in this country (Guyana). Veterinary Public Health Unit Director, Dr Ozaye Dodson had said the imposition from the US export market was just a temporary technical barrier to trade. He had posited that the country fell short of…
Read MoreDesperately seeking loopholes
By Ravi Dev Everyone has recourse in the courts to seek justice, but it does appear to me that the PNC-led coalition is losing sight of the bigger picture in our fledgling democracy, as they flail around for a reason to have the no-confidence decision reversed. First they tried – and succeeded to a large extent – to tie the country into knots over the claim that in a finite set of 65 discrete variables (meaning things that couldn’t be individually divided – like people, in this instance) a subset…
Read MoreWho can be an MP?
After jumping on any number of limbs – bribery; the meaning of “majority” in an odd number assembly and evidently “moral turpitude” – gambling – the People’s National Congress (PNC)-led Government, via the proxy of a “private citizen”, filed a lawsuit in the High Court objecting to the validity of Charrandas Persaud’s’ vote in the No-confidence Motion on December 21, 2018, on the ground of his dual citizenship with Guyana and Canada. While it is acknowledged that Guyanese can hold dual citizenship, the Government’s proxy is contending that the Constitution…
Read MoreVision: A critical element
The life of the 41st President of the United States of America (USA), George HW Bush, is being globally analysed following his death on November 30, 2018. Inevitably, it generally takes death for such discussions which often become outlets for platitudes. That aside, there are a number of things about former US President Bush that have been spoken about glowingly long before his death. Despite being a politician with its unfortunate stereotyping, the decency, as embodied by the character traits he exhibited publicly, has always been a high point that…
Read MoreReviving Guyana’s musical culture
The musical culture of Guyana, like so many other facets of Guyanese life, has suffered a serious decline and perhaps the time has come for various stakeholders to review the situation with the aim of ensuring that the necessary action is taken to remedy the situation. Until about a generation ago, there was far more variety and also stronger evidence of classical music, whether Western or Indian. Today, most of the music which one hears on the radio and television and that is being played in live performances, tends to…
Read MoreConventions of parliamentary democracy
It is a cliché to say that divorces are messy, but with Britain’s efforts to part ways with the EU, we can also conclude that divorce between countries is no different. We have all gone through the reasons why a majority of Britons chose “Brexit” – chief among them being their gripe that decisions on their “way of life” were being made by faceless bureaucrats in Brussels. But actually, nativist fears of being swamped by Eastern Europeans, who could enter Britain freely as citizens of the EU, was more critical.…
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