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CARICOM ignores Guyana Opposition over electoral disgust – Ramkarran
Kaieteur News – The leadership of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is currently ignoring requests being made by Guyana’s political opposition for its intervention into the ongoing impasse between the A Partnership of National Unity, Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) and the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C).
This is since CARICOM “is probably thoroughly disgusted at the behaviour” of the APNU+AFC, given the electoral impasse that consumed the country post March 2, 2020, when the coalition attempted to rig the results of the General and Regional Elections.
Former Speaker of the National Assembly, Ralph Ramkarran
This position was adumbrated by Chairperson of A New and United Guyana (ANUG), Ralph Ramkarran, who over the weekend in his conversationtree.org online outlet, responded to the opposition leader, Joseph Harmon’s public lamentations over the perceived neglect by the CARICOM Secretariat and its Chairman, Prime Minister Keith Rowley.
Harmon recently wrote to the CARICOM Chairman, “requesting their mediation of the current stalemate between the Government and Opposition.”
He recalled that the stalemate has arisen because the Opposition Leader’s request of President Irfaan Ali for a meeting to discuss matters of state has been rejected by President Ali, “who demands recognition of the Government as a condition for the meeting.”
Ramkarran in his public musings, has since noted that in the past, then President Bharrat Jagdeo had met Opposition Leaders Desmond Hoyte in 2001 and Robert Corbin in 2006, “even though they had alleged that those elections were fraudulent and had filed election petitions challenging the results.,”
According to Ramkarran both of the then opposition leaders had declared their non-recognition of the PPP/C governments.”
Ramkarran, himself a former Speaker of the National Assembly, recalled that the boycotting of the Parliament was a regular feature of those years, “at one time for 18 months.”
Disruption of the National Assembly was less intense, he said, but noted that despite the political posturing, “agreements were arrived at between the Government and Opposition.”
He suggested that “while they did not succeed in any permanent political solution, at least the political parties retained the capacity to reach across the divide.”
Questioning rhetorically, “what is different this time around” and “why is the PPP/C Government not reaching out or not responding to the Opposition’s invitation” or “why is CARICOM ignoring the Opposition Leader, Ramkarran posits, “CARICOM is probably thoroughly disgusted at the behaviour of APNU+AFC.”
The ANUG Chairman was adamant the APNU+AFC “violated the Constitution by the Cabinet refusing to resign after the No-Confidence motion in December 2018” and “again violated the Constitution by failing to hold elections within the three-month period.”
The APNU+AFC, he also recalled, “refused to recognize its caretaker status.”
Addressing the Caribbean umbrella body, Ramkarran recollected too that the APNU+AFC administration even violated a commitment to have a CARICOM recount of the votes of the March 2020 elections, by legally challenging the recount agreement it had signed.
According to Ramkarran, the APNU+AFC administration—now in opposition—”made a mockery of the recount by frivolously challenging the validity of over 100,000 votes.”
He recalled too that the Chief Election Officer, Keith Lowenfield, also repeatedly refused to comply with the directions of the Chairman of the Elections Commission—Claudette Singh—to certify the results of the recount.
This, he said caused ethnic violence to foment in West Coast Berbice and further, the Opposition is currently “on a course to make the Parliament so unruly that it can barely carry out its business.”
The political stalwart noted too that “above all, CARICOM, though understandably reluctant, based on its recent experiences, will not intervene in the business of a member State unless invited by both parties as in the case of the Herdmanston Accord of 1998, signed by Desmond Hoyte and Janet Jagan to end the political crisis at that time.”
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