Response of the usual suspects and the Creole middle class: Conclusion

Apr 30, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – Writer’s note: This is the second and final installment of the unpublished letter by the usual suspects and the Creole middle class which was featured in my Monday, April 18, 2022 column. The letter follows.
Dear Editor: Below are our explanations/positions on certain explosive situations since December 2018. Let us start with the legally rejected appointment of Justice Patterson as GECOM chairman. President Granger rejected all 18 names submitted by Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo. We believe the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) erred when it ruled that the president acted unilaterally.
A closer reading of the relevant article in the constitution would reveal that in the event of disagreement, the president can make a choice of his own. Mr. Jagdeo’s list of 18 persons was simply pro-PPP citizens. Based on this attitude, we chose not to condemn the president or write any criticism.
On the battle of the no-confidence vote (NCV) in December 2018, our position is guided by our perspectives on politics. First, you do not bring down a legitimately elected ruling party by any means. Wait until another election comes. The NCV was a dagger manufactured by the PPP to stab the David Granger presidency.
Secondly, we thought Charrandass Persaud should never, along with other Berbicians, have been part of a middle class, urban based party with a different set of values. At the formation of the AFC, many of us did not support the inclusion of many personalities from outside of certain societal strata into our party. We conceded and look what Charrandass Persaud did.
Our position in 2005 when the AFC was formed was that it would be a wedge between the working class socialism of the PPP and the PNC and the need for a capitalist economy that would appreciate what other classes can bring to the cultural development of 21st century Guyana.
There was a vacuum to be filled in the political economy of Guyana after the long rule of the PPP and the dormancy of the PNC. With the ascendency of the WPA leaders in a new styled PNC outfit named APNU and with David Granger at the helm, both the WPA and AFC had offered themselves as the final solution to the dominance of the Indianised PPP.
With a limited landscape for the WPA, the formation of the AFC could only have broadened that political real estate and it did. From the start up days of the AFC, we wanted the organisation to follow the pattern of the National Democratic Party under John Carter from the 1950s and the glory days of the middle class in WPA in the 1970s. We were appreciative of the success of office in 2015 of Mr. Granger himself, the two WPA leaders and our colleagues in the original AFC.
Many of us that are ridiculed as the usual suspects and the Creole middle class had opposed the inclusion of certain personalities from the PPP and Ravi Dev’s disbanded political party, ROAR, into the AFC. We felt that was not the organisation we wanted to build because we wanted to occupy a certain niche in the political economy of the country.
As soon as the AFC came to power, Dr. Ramaya upset the apple cart. We are comfortable using the term, “apple-cart.” Others can use mango-cart if they want. We endorsed the position of the trade union congress (TUC) as reported by Demerara Waves on May 1, 2019 that an NCV should be passed by a majority of over 40. It is for this reason we did not condemn the president or wrote criticism in the column, “In The Diaspora.”
Now to the war of numbers in the NCV – 33 versus 34. Again, we think the CCJ erred. The CCJ rejected the case of Vanuatu offered by the government’s lawyers. That is a landmark decision that the CCJ should have accepted because it sets a precedent in Commonwealth jurisprudence. We could not in good faith support the NCV when we accept that a half of 65 members in parliament is 32.5. This means you have to round it off. 33 then is not a majority but half of the parliamentary numbers.
Finally, the five months of so-called election rigging. There is not much to say on this enigma but to repeat what we consider were the wise words of Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine in a television interview with Neil Marks during the election drama. He said that there were thousands of irregularities. We respect the wisdom of Dr. Roopnaraine who has been Walter Rodney’s closest comrade. Our position on the election was derived from his perspective. We will not be deterred in confronting the PPP.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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