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General elections now, or shut the country down!

Nov 16, 2014 Letters

Dear Editor,
President Donald Ramotar at a press conference yesterday said that in the next few days he will invite the combined opposition for “talks” on the way forward following his prorogation (suspension) of Parliament.”
Mr. Ramotar heads a minority government. On November 10, he abruptly prorogued Parliament to circumvent the passage of a no-confidence vote against the minority PPP government. The motion was tabled by the opposition Parliamentary majority, and was scheduled for debate and passage that said day.
Mr. Ramotar knew that its passage was all but certain. Hence, he deliberately suspended the Parliament; abrogated democracy and engineered a constitutional crisis, so that he can rule by decree.  He consequently violated the democratic ethos and plunged our nation into one party rule, from which despotism and an insidious dictatorship have emerged.
The place for discussion and debate is the Parliament. Mr. Ramotar effectively emasculated Parliament in a desperate effort to silence the voice of the people’s representatives.
Now he purportedly wants talks. Let me address Mr. Ramotar directly: Talks to discuss what? For a President who runs a minority government, your priorities are upside-down and your arrogance is appalling! Your supposed consultation with the Parliamentary “majority” should have been sought before you contemptuously and unilaterally prorogued the Parliament and stifled democratic expression. So take your invitation for talks and go fly a kite!
I strongly urge Opposition Leader Mr. David Granger as well as AFC Leader Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan, and their respective parties, to summarily reject any invitation for talks from Mr. Ramotar or the PPP. The time for talking is over!  We’ve had enough. We need resolute action.
The Guyanese people must reject Mr. Ramotar as an undemocratic leader and reject the tyranny of one party PPP rule. So too must the Caribbean region and the international community.
The inescapable action we seek is general elections; be it as a consequence of a no-confidence vote by the majority in the Parliament, or by way of Mr. Ramotar himself realizing that he cannot hide from an inevitable reality, and must call early elections by “forced-choice.”
This is the bottom line: There must be general elections now or shut the country down!
No 2015 budget. No useless, phony talks. No deals. No modus Vivendi!
We want general elections, and we want them now. Plain and simple!
Rickford Burke
President, Caribbean
Guyana Institute for
Democracy (CGID)

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