Latest update September 4th, 2026 10:23 AM
A boldface objection
On Tuesday, General Secretary of the ruling People’s Progressive Party, Clement Rohee, announced his party’s objection to the employment of Richard Francois as Public Relations Officer of the Guyana Elections Commission. The ground of the objection was that Francois was politically aligned to one of the opposition parties.
Rohee then said that someone performing the duties of Public Relations Officer of the Guyana Elections Commission should be apolitical. Indeed, in colonial Guyana anyone holding public office was not allowed to publicly display any political opinion or affiliation.
One could understand that since the public servant was there to serve the entire population regardless of the political affiliation of the person in need of service. A small country like Guyana where everyone knew the other, where people literally grew up side by side it was difficult to insist that the public servant was apolitical.
However, there were strict guidelines. Public servants could not be seen on a political platform. Neither could they be seen wearing the political garb of one party or another. This was extended to the media. No reporter worth his salt would be found campaigning for any political party. As his job dictated, he was expected to be neutral.
One first saw the politicization of the public service in the wake of the October 5, 1992 elections. Perhaps this had been the case but the various appointees were not exposed to public scrutiny because the political party in power at the time, the People’s National Congress, was there for almost forever so the public servant was not asked about his political loyalty.
When the PPP came to office, President Cheddi Jagan made it known that he did not respect what was considered the independence of the public service. He swept the Permanent Secretaries from their desks and put in place his own people. This prompted a flood of questions and the response from Dr. Jagan that when a new American President enters office certain people knowingly resign to give the new President a clean slate.
What Dr. Jagan did not recognize was that the public servant did not resign. The people who resigned were the people specially appointed by the President to certain positions. For example the Secretary of State was one of those.
It took a fierce protest to stop Dr. Jagan from appointing a politician as Head of the Presidential Secretariat. For the PPP to now talk about apolitical people being appointed to certain positions is to make a mockery of the independence of the public service.
Still fresh in the memory was the delay by the government to appoint Justice James Bovell-Drakes as a judge. Indeed, as a young man he was a leader of the youth arm of the then ruling People’s National Congress. It took a protest by the prominent lawyers and the pursuit legal action to force the appointment. At the same time people who were sympathetic to the ruling party were appointed unhesitatingly.
So for the PPP to object to a man it accuses of being politically affiliated is to make a mockery of the party’s adherence to the role of the independence of the public service. It has not escaped notice that the People’s Progressive Party seems to have its radar locked on the Guyana Elections Commission.
What we find interesting is that the ruling party cannot identify the political party to which this individual is affiliated. This individual, Richard Francois, is qualified for the job. Up until recently, he had worked as a consultant with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Education.
He would have produced advertisements for the Alliance For Change three years ago, and a voter education campaign programme that was used by A Partnership for National Unity. Surely his political affiliation would be unclear.
He won from among three other applicants. One of them is a known PPP sympathizer, and the other is closely affiliated to an individual who is in the bosom of the ruling party. One could only wonder if either had been appointed if there would have been this objection.
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