President should meet with civil society on way forward – Opposition Leader

Feb 23, 2019 News

Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, told members of the media that multiple civil society organizations have voiced to him, their futile efforts to meet with the President.
At his weekly press conference on Thursday last, Jagdeo said that he has been in contact with members of civil society who are frustrated that the President has not set aside time to meet with them, so that they may discuss how civil society can contribute to breaking the current political impasse and move forward.
The PPP General Secretary said that “when it comes to reaching out, being accountable and meeting with civil society, this president and this government have not even afforded the civil society organizations even a perfunctory meeting.”
“That civil society forum has been waiting for several weeks to meet the President, but he has refused to meet with them.”
The international community and civil society have urged the government to respect the Constitution, he noted, but civil society has been forced to do a balancing act between government and opposition, by saying that “all” parties must respect the Constitution, implying that civil society finds it necessary to tiptoe around the government.
Despite what such a balancing act implies, Jagdeo said “I made it clear to them that [the PPP is] not in violation of the Constitution, and that [the PPP is] not pushing this country into a constitutional crisis.”
Jagdeo said that he told those who contacted him that the government is propelling Guyana into a constitutional crisis, which is compromising the country’s interests, and placing its people “significantly at risk because of this government’s proclivity to cling to power at all costs”.
“Because they did not achieve that meeting, they sought to meet with me to initiate certain actions with the President,” he said.
The Opposition Leader said he was asked by civil society members, ‘Will you not go over to meet President Granger to discuss this matter?’
He said that he is not concerned, at this point, with initiating such a meeting with the President, unless the agenda of such a meeting will discuss a reasonable timeline for elections. Otherwise, he will not, since “it is business as usual. Somehow, they’re peddling out there that ‘we can win this all and elections could be held whenever we want it’”.
“For us, it is not business as usual. I’m not just going to go there for another PR exercise”.

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