APNU threatens to pull out from talks

Aug 14, 2013 News

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… demands apology over President’s congress remarks

The main Opposition on Monday called on Government to show more respect, saying that inter-party dialogue has been reduced to a talk-shop.
During a press conference, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) said it is prepared to work with the government, but there must be compromise on the way forward in relation to Guyana’s development.
The coalition was responding to reported statements that President Donald Ramotar made during the recent congress of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) at Port Mourant, Berbice.
Leader of APNU, Brigadier (Ret’d)  David Granger, opined that the language used by the President “is going to damage the sort of relationship that had developed since December 2011, where we would speak to each other, but now nobody is listening…everybody is shouting, he will have to change his course. He will have to prepare the PPP to understand that what took place on the 28th of November 2011 has changed the structure of the National Assembly and there is nothing he could do about what is happening in the National Assembly.”
At the press conference also were three of APNU’s senior Members of Parliament, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, Joseph Harmon and Carl Greenidge.
According to the former army head, the Government has failed to understand the new makeup in the political landscape.
“We (the Opposition) have the majority but we with the majority are prepared to sit down and talk, but he (the President) with the minority seems not prepared to sit down and talk and this sort of language is unhelpful to moving the country forward.”
Since being elected in November 2011, President Ramotar has been calling for closer relationships with the Opposition. However, the utterances at the congress seemed to contradict the calls by the President, APNU said Monday.
Ramotar reportedly said that the Opposition in the National Assembly has “tried to use Parliament to block social and economic progress.”
APNU, however, in denying this, also said it is totally untrue that it voted down the solar panel project for people in the interior and was against the Amerindian Land titling, affecting Amerindian communities.                                                                                                                                                                        APNU contended that the President’s statement that the Opposition was reducing Parliament to a farce and impeding the country’s future can potentially pollute the political atmosphere and damage the prospects of dialogue.
Regarding the continuing dialogue with Government, Carl Greenidge was of the opinion that the talks yielded nothing because of the unflinching stance of the ruling party.
“…but you know at the end of those talks, the President and his advisors end exactly where they started, they yield nothing absolutely nothing, although they do not have a majority in the Parliament. It seems almost ridiculous that you would waste people time in that way.”                                                                                                                                                 The coalition called on the President, as leader of the PPP, to withdraw his “offensive” remarks that the present National Assembly was “a wound on the body politic of our nation…a wound and one that is festering and reopening every time a sensible, moral and costed development project is stalled because the Opposition wants to hold back progress, or the cheap publicity or promoting agendas to our people.”
When questioned as to why they are refuting the statements made, Dr. Roopnaraine made it clear that “I don’t believe that the best environment for making agreements and negotiations is for one side to be accusing the other of criminal intent, which essentially is what is happening. We are very disappointed with the turn of events. We believe that this, in effect, pollutes the environment for any kind of negotiation or settlement on a variety of issues. When these utterances came from Port Mourant, I believe that, at least for the time being, it puts an end to meaningful negotiations.”                                                                                                        APNU said that it remains committed to civil discourse and collaborating with all parties, civil society and non-governmental organizations in order to contribute to the national development. It will also “continue to work towards the achievement of “inclusionary democracy” as prescribed by the constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana.”

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