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Jagdeo challenges Corbin to identify legal advisors

Jan 09, 2011 News


Third term allegation…

Head of State Bharrat Jagdeo has challenged the leader of the Parliamentary Opposition and Peoples National Congress Reform Robert Corbin to identify the legal advisors which he purportedly sought assistance in finding out how to extend his stay in Office.
Jagdeo said that Corbin must do this if he wants people to accept this as credible.
According to the President Jagdeo, Corbin must identify from whom, when and where the advice was sought.
The President pointed to his New Year’s address to the nation in which he said that there will be elections this year.
The President posited that Corbin was just seeking political attention at a time when he has ceded the right to be his party’s Presidential Candidate and was seeking to boost his almost dead political popularity.
Corbin, asked for a comment, said that he is sticking by his story. He said that one of the three attempts was made to an individual attached to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
Corbin said that he could not identify the other two sources given that he did not want to compromise his colleagues.
This newspaper in speaking with a source at GECOM said that while a third term for the President was never discussed, the commission did address what would happen if GECOM was not ready at the constitutional deadline for elections.
If the election is not held before Parliament comes to an end on September 28 then there is a three-month timeframe within which it must be held.
There is a provision in the law that allows for the Parliament to vote for an extension of the life of Parliament as was the case in 1990 when the House voted to extend the life of Parliament for two years delaying the elections to 1992.
At that time the international community had exerted pressure on the ruling People’s National Congress to modify the elections commission and to have a proper voters’ list. The then Opposition Parties had agreed to the extension and voted in favour of the delay.
Corbin on Friday last, said that ever since September 2010, the PNCR had been acutely aware of the efforts by President Bharrat Jagdeo to find a way of remaining in Office beyond his Constitutional mandate.
Corbin said that Jagdeo sought three legal opinions on how the objective could be attained. All the legal advice that he has obtained and which the PNCR has seen, according to Corbin have advised that it is neither legally nor constitutionally possible.
But in the wake of President Jagdeo’s challenge Corbin could not provide the visual evidence of the pursuit of a third term.
“The last opinion advised that unless there is a national emergency there is no way of delaying the General and Regional Elections…More details were later sought on how that emergency could be created,” Corbin told his weekly press conference.
He said that the warped reasoning of the President and his men was that the elections were delayed in 1990 for two years and the PPP/C period in Office after the 1997 elections was cut short by one year.
“Consequently, the PPP/C should use all means at its disposal to regain this period under President Jagdeo since all efforts to achieve a third term in office have gained no support either within the PPP hierarchy or the wider society.”
Corbin said that it is in that context that Guyanese must analyse recent developments, including the trumped up treason charges against three Guyanese, the attempts to burn down the Enterprise Government School, the recent explosions and the unconscionable actions of dismantling the stalls around Stabroek Market, thus placing into jeopardy the livelihood of more than 400 Guyanese citizens struggling to eke out an existence in difficult circumstances.

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